Voltaire's Candide: from the Other Side of Civilization

Le Monde Français du Dix-Huitième Siècle Volume 6, Issue-numéro 1 2021 Pédagogies et héritages Dir. Servanne Woodward Voltaire’s Candide: From the Other Side of Civilization Peter R. Saìz [email protected] DOI: DOI: 10.5206/mfds-ecfw.v6i1.13888 Voltaire’s Candide: From the other side of Western Civilization […] many years ago I remember asking a scholar of the “Enlightenment” whose talk celebrated ideas of freedom and individualism that were developed in the second half of the century how he might reconsider his ideas if he thought about them from the point of view of people and territories that were colonized then. He said he thought my response was “bizarre.”1 […] while the cosmopolitan is nowhere a stranger, and moves freely from city to city and continent to continent, the slave is defined as unfree. Like a domesticated animal or a commodity, his movements in the world are always chosen and controlled by others. Through these two figures and their encounter in the novel, Voltaire exposes the human condition in a world where individual identity depends upon the rules of commerce.2 Suvir Kaul is enthusiastic about the recent success of ASECS’ panels on “Race and Empire Studies” to “packed audiences” (p. 34), while Ingvild Hageb Kjørholt discusses Voltaire’s optimistic view of British commerce as leveling all otherness in its peaceful magnanimous way, a perspective favoring cosmopolitan luxury in Le Mondain, yet he somewhat reverses course with Candide (1759), where the global tour reveals, “a global geography of commerce and war” the one built on the other (“Cosmopolitans”, 63). The assessment of Voltaire’s anti-imperialism provides some evidence that the transition could be compared to current calls for “decolonizing” our heritage of the eighteenth-century was not entirely foreign to this philosopher. Voltaire has often been regarded as the symbol of the Enlightenment, the philosophe whose life and work embodies the spirit and progress of the “age of thought”. However, Voltaire was often alienated from the same society that he sought to influence. He always remained a Parisian at heart, though he spent much of his life in exile. He cursed the city’s barbarity, returning only at the end of his life to receive a hero’s welcome and to die there. His heritage often resurfaces in his works, evincing an ambiguous perspective toward French Imperialism. At the time of Voltaire’s banishment from France, the French author was beginning to be recognized as France’s foremost new playwright, the heir to the tradition of Corneille and Racine. Some biographers contend that Voltaire’s thought undergoes a marked transformation during his stay in England, while others believe that the sojourn hardly changed his thinking. The mindset of Voltaire was probably well established before he ever left France. However, it is certain that Voltaire greatly admired England and felt that France suffered by comparison in the domain of politics, religious tolerance, liberal thought, and culture. For Voltaire was liberal and despised tyranny of any kind. Much of the resentment directed against Voltaire stemmed from the fact that he had so much influence during the course of his life. Aside from his anti-clerical views (though a deist) and subversive nature, he was known for being one of the few philosophers, if not the only one, to directly influence the politics of an age. He was accepted as a member of the Royal Court in England and assumed the position of advisor to the king of Prussia during Frederick’s reign. Voltaire also issued political 1 Suvir Kaul, in Nicole Mansfield Wright, “ASECS at 50: Interview with Suvir Kaul”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 53.1 (2019): 33 of 31-42. 2 Ingvild Hageb Kjørholt, “Cosmopolitans, Slaves, and the Global Market in Voltaire’s Candide, ou l’optimisme”, Eighteenth- Century Fiction 25.1 (September 2012): 63 of 61-84. DOI:10.3138/ecf.25.1.61 pamphlets against the kingdom of France and urged other groups to do so. In effect, he initiated a tone of rebellion for an age which would culminate in the French Revolution. Following the popularity of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries travel literature, he chose the backdrop of an international journey to contest the optimism of Leibniz. The European’s desire to explore was based on economic and political factors, as well as the desire to uncover some lost utopia, and Edenic paradise and an El Dorado. Voltaire was influenced by the travelogues of his days, though citing specific influences proves difficult. It was established, however, that the author has read and admired Rabelais, Montesquieu, and The Arabian Nights. Candide recounts the journeys of its title character, who is wronged or mistreated during each of his expeditions. Candide, who is the illegitimate nephew of a German nobleman, falls in love with his daughter, Cunegonde. Cunegonde and Candide’s first kiss is interrupted by her father, who consequently banishes Candide from his palace. Candide is thus expelled from “Eden”, or the kingdom inhabited by Cunegonde. She is the symbolic Eve whose charms prove fatal to her lover. Candide may simultaneously represent Christ, Adam, and Cain, since he is variously cast as an innocent, a victim of seduction, and a murderer. After Candide leaves the castle and the kingdom, the Abares are slaughtered by Bulgarian soldiers, the baron and his daughter are evicted from their dwelling just like Candide, and eventually all the characters suffer comparable sets of tragedies. In the battle between the Abares and the Bulgarians, the author describes how “First the cannons battered down about six thousand men on each side: then volleys of musket fire removed from the best of the worlds nine or ten thousand rascals who were cluttering up its surface” (Candide, p. 5). This passage is obviously an attack on the philosophical optimism of Leibniz, Pope, and others who proclaimed that “whatever is, is right.” Voltaire also rejects their notion of an idyllic nature and a benevolent God. Hence, Voltaire’s portrait of the garden signals disruption. Candide’s tale is set against the backdrop of imperialist wars and domination. The conquest of his family’s kingdom by a foreign power sets in motion an endless series of violence related to this event. Nationalism as expansion through conquest, imperialism, war in general all come under attack by Voltaire. Candide’s rejection of El Dorado signifies the absurdity of humanity’s vision. Candide chooses to leave this ideal city, where each subject is rich and stands on an equal footing, in order to pursue Cunegonde and worldly privileges halfway around the world. The question of why Candide leaves El Dorado remains a vexing question for many readers. It seems that his greed is a source of great evil and it exists in a context of inequality, where some are rich, and some are poor or dispossessed. Voltaire’s message rings clear. Imperialism as greed constitutes an extension of this distressful condition. A surplus of destitute people feeds its expansionist wars. Martin renders a most succinct description of the imperialist orders of Europe when he says that “A million regimented assassins roam Europe from one end to the other, plying the trades of murder and robbery in an organized way for a living, because there is no more honest work for them” (Candide, p. 45). Perhaps an even more telling indictment of imperialism is suggested by Voltaire when Candide meets up with a black slave at a Dutch colony in Africa. After having described his poverty and mutilation to Candide, the slave proclaims that “This is the price of sugar” to be consumed by the Europeans (p. 41). A more stirring denunciation of colonialism is not to be found in this text. Yet while Voltaire is attacking the evils of an age which included imperialism and colonialism, he is also affirming these modes of usurpation. Voltaire’s critique of imperialism is not altogether one- sided. In Candide, the landscapes are often represented as rough and unaccommodating if not inhospitable. The narrator’s depiction of the hemispheres emphasizes their wilderness and undesirability. El Dorado is described as surrounded by perilous cliffs and sharp rocks. El Dorado, the European conception of paradise, remains utterly dissatisfying since Candide wants to leave the city so much that he is willing to risk his life in the process. Its city appears uninhabitable and it is surrounded by an hostile environment, as if its exception cannot be sustained if it is in contact with the rest of the world. When Candide exports its treasures, they disappear at great speed. During the trip to Cayennes, “mountains, rivers, cliffs, robbers, and savages obstructed the way everywhere” (Candide, 54). The concept of the hostile environment of outcasts, living out of alternative economies, and other “savages” is opposed to civilized and policed society. Urban landscapes or cultivated fields seem desirable in Manon Lescaut (1731) as well. Even before the apex of European intervention in “unexplored” territories, other cultures are denigrated. In Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a satire which influenced Voltaire, as well as in Samuel Johnson’s oriental epic Rasselas (1759) published the same year as Candide, European civilization appears most welcoming and desirable. The philosopher Imlac, who often serves as Johnson’s mouthpiece, denigrates Arabic culture while praising Western- European refinement, and technological advancement and knowledge. “That Other,” says Christopher L. Miller, “always has a separate identity of its own, an inferior culture” (Blank Darkness, 15). “Others” are invested with falsehood as a negative of true beingness as if they presumably emerge from the land that should support the foundation of the Empire. The process of mythmaking relegates those others as the roots of the empire erased and superseded by modernity.

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