Mahomet - Voltaire

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Résumé :
This powerful work was read by Voltaire to Frederick of Prussia in 1740, to the king's great delight. The play was withdrawn after the fourth representation, under pressure of Church authorities who professed to see in it a bloody satire against the Christian religion. Almost three hundred years later critics are still unclear if this play is a rebuke of Islam or of Christianity or, perhaps, both. Wilder Publications is a green publisher. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.

Biographie:
Fran?ois-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 - 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltair , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets.[10] He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.
Fran?ois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of Fran?ois Arouet (1649-1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard (c. 1660-1701), whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility.[11] Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Gu?rin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune.[12] Two of his older brothers-Armand-Fran?ois and Robert-died in infancy, and his surviving brother Armand and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively.[13] Nicknamed Zozo by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with Fran?ois de Castagn?re, abb? de Ch?teauneuf [fr], and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents.[14] He was educated by the Jesuits at the Coll?ge Louis-le-Grand (1704-1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric;[15] later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.[16]
By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer.[17] Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in Caen, Normandy. But the young man continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Ch?teauneuf [fr], the brother of Voltaire's godfather.[18] At The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer (known as 'Pimpette').[18] Their affair, considered scandalous, was discovered by de Ch?teauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year.

Sommaire:
Francois-Marie Arouet was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian who lived from November 21, 1694, to May 30, 1778. He was better known by the pen name M. de Voltaire. Voltaire fought for free speech, religious freedom, and the separation of church and state. He was known for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially the Roman Catholic Church) and slavery. It is said that Voltaire wrote a lot of different kinds of writing, such as plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and even science explanations. He wrote greater than twenty thousand letters and two thousand books and leaflets. Voltaire was one of the first writers to become famous and make a lot of money around the world. He spoke out for civil rights and was always in danger because of the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. In his polemics, he made fun of prejudice, religious dogma, and the French institutions of the time in a very harsh way. Candide, his most famous and important work, is a short story that makes fun of many events, philosophers, and ideas popular at the time. Its main target is Gottfried Leibniz's idea that our world is the best of all possible worlds....