Candide (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) -

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Résumé :
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....

Biographie:
Fran?ois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his pen name Voltaire, was one of the central figures of the French Enlightenment. A philosopher, historian, satirist, and dramatist, he was renowned for his wit, intellectual independence, and unflinching criticism of religious intolerance and political tyranny. Though modern readers most readily associate him with Candide, Voltaire achieved extraordinary fame in his own lifetime as a playwright, becoming the most successful dramatist of eighteenth-century France.His tragedies and comedies were performed before Europe's leading audiences and helped shape the intellectual and moral debates of his age. Through works of satire, philosophical tale, and classical drama, Voltaire advanced ideals of reason, civil liberty, and freedom of thought that would influence generations to come. He remains one of the most widely read and historically significant writers of the Enlightenment period....

Sommaire:
As fresh and pertinent as ever. -Julian Barnes, The Guardian A NEWLY REVISED EDITION Candide, Voltaire's magnum opus, is a matchless satirical takedown of religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. The novella unfolds as the sheltered and privileged Candide, a young man enraptured by his facile mentor Pangloss, experiences the hardships and injustices of life, forcing him to abandon the na?ve notion that all is for the best in favor of a practical determination that life is best lived cultivating one's garden. Considered by many to be one of the greatest achievements of Western literature, Candide has influenced modern writers of black humor such as C?line, Joseph Heller, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Terry Southern. This Warbler Classics edition includes extensive notes, a comprehensive glossary, and a detailed biographical timeline of Voltaire's life and work....