Voltaire Candide

VOLTAIRE CANDIDE Introduction Chronology French – English parallel text Notes Glossary Further Reading and Links [The word NOTE in the French text indicates a crux of translation that is explored further in the Notes that follow the text. Voltaire at the age of 24, by Catherine Lusurier, after Nicolas de Largillière’s painting. A star (*) in the English version indicates the name of a person or place, identified further in the Glossary at the end of the translation. In both cases, click on NOTE or the star to be taken to the relevant discussion, and then on RETURN to come back to the text.] © tclt.org.uk 2010 INTRODUCTION There can be few, if any, writers whose achievement has been profound and various enough as to result in their name being connected with an entire literary period, with one of the stations on the Paris Métro, with a celebrated American musical, with a famous racehorse, and with a Gothic rock band. The writer in question is, of course, Voltaire, who over the course of a long life from 1694 to 1778 came to dominate not only French but also European culture, to the extent that the 18th century Age of Enlightenment is often, and justifiably, referred to as the Age of Voltaire. Even at first meeting, what is at once apparent is the astonishing breadth of his cultural interests and literary skills. He wrote prolifically, producing works in practically every literary form: major poems, essays, between fifty and sixty plays, works of history and philosophy and science, political tracts against slavery and social injustice, in addition to more than 20,000 letters and countless pamphlets. He was the intimate of kings and the aristocracy, yet crusaded tirelessly in defence of ordinary people. He was a polymath, yet could focus intently upon a single issue or person. Throughout his life and work, however, there remained a central search: for a world that believed in clear, verifiable, enlightened attitudes towards both religious and secular institutions, for a liberal world that was willing, and able, to expose illusion, deceit, and superstition, in whatever form it appeared. In the range and depth of his inquiry, he was the 18th century’s finest example of ‘Renaissance man’. It is not surprising that, when his secretly buried remains were brought back to Paris to be enshrined in the Panthéon, it was estimated that a million people attended the procession. If there is a single work by which Voltaire is now best known, it is the tale Candide, first published in January 1759 as an anonymous French translation from the German of a certain Dr Ralph. So sensitive was Voltaire to the probability of censorship and suppression by the authorities that it was nine years before he publically admitted authorship. But the book itself enjoyed an immediate and outstanding success, selling more than 25,000 copies in twelve months. The tale presents a sustained satire against the notion of philosophical optimism, the belief that the iii INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION universe is organised according to a pre-established harmonious plan. The narrative pace of the tale, rushing one event upon another, then Lines in Pope’s Essay on Man (1733-34) distil the essence of that belief: another, then yet another, creates a kaleidoscopic effect of a story always changing its focus and point of interest. As Candide travels from All nature is but art, unknown to thee; Germany, to Holland, to Portugal, to Argentina, to Paraguay, to Eldorado, All chance, direction which thou canst not see; to Dutch Guiana, back across the Atlantic to France, then England, then All discord, harmony not understood; Italy, and finally Turkey, there is scarcely a pause for breath. This sense All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, of restless movement, moreover, is enhanced by Voltaire’s choice of One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. narrative voice. Although there are some instances of straightforward, third-person narration, the dominant emphasis by far is upon the speaking Against the clarity and complacency of this world-view, however, voice, either in passages of extended monologue, where a character tells a Voltaire presents a wholly different analysis and account. In the world of story, or in passages of sharp and pointed dialogue. Rarely in Candide Candide, human beings rape, pillage, murder, massacre, blind, butcher, does a moment go by when somebody is not talking. torture, abuse, enslave, persecute, and hang and burn to death. The natural world is scarcely less brutal, killing tens of thousands through earthquake, This sense of voices directly speaking to each other, or to themselves, disease, storm, fire, and the inevitable erosions of time. But as he travels is perhaps the central quality that any translation of Candide has to across the ravaged landscapes of Europe and the Americas, the achieve. Naturally, the various characters in the story speak differently; eponymous hero Candide is slowly and painfully compelled to recognise and there could be no greater mistake than to render, say, Pangloss’s the folly of belief in any system, whether philosophical, religious, or convoluted sentences as less complicated than they actually are, or the old political. The Edenic belief that all is for the best in the best of all woman’s vibrant adjectives as less colourful than they really are. For all possible worlds ˜ the constant mantra of his misguided tutor Pangloss ˜ this, though, the voices have to sound idiomatic, rhythmically convincing, is finally voiced in a infinitely more muted form: that probably the best unforced, with the naturalness and suppleness of ordinary conversation. we can do is to try and look after the little that we have. Il faut cultiver Make them arch, or formalised, or over-elaborate in diction and syntax, notre jardin. and they lose contact with heard reality. Consider, for instance, the following versions of a single comment at the end of the story, when the If there is a single aspect of Candide that few readers will fail to good old man who comes to provide a model for Candide reacts to the recognise, it is its narrative energy, the sheer drive of the actions and news of assassinations in Constantinople. The original reads: events that crowd into the foreground of the tale. Characterisation, for the most part, is of secondary importance, and rarely are we allowed access ‘J’ignore absolument l’aventure dont vous me parlez…’ (ch.30) to inner thoughts or psychological complexities. The figures of Candide, Pangloss, Cunégonde, Martin, the old woman, and so on, are stylisations Three modern versions of these words read: rather than subtly rendered, three-dimensional characters. Nor, indeed, is the philosophic underpinning of the story in the theodicy of Leibniz made ‘I’m completely ignorant of the incident you’re talking to me about…’ central, for ‘philosophising’ in Candide is an activity far more often ridiculed than endorsed. But what energises the tale is, in the words of ‘What you have just told me means absolutely nothing to me…’ Hippolyte Taine, ‘I am entirely ignorant of the matter you refer to…’ its prodigious rapidity, the dizzy, dazzling passage of things forever new ˜ Even in these very short examples, a tension between convincing speech ideas, images, events, landscapes, stories, dialogues ˜ in a series of miniature and over-formalised expression is evident. Pronoun and verb (I’m, paintings, which fly past as if projected by a magic lantern, withdrawn almost as soon as they are put forward by the impatient magician, who in the wink of you’re) are contracted in only one example, but remain formally an eye, races across the globe, and who, now astride of history, now of fable, separated in the other two (‘what you have just told me’, ‘I am entirely now truth, now fantasy, now present, now past, frames his work sometimes ignorant’). Both diction and syntax sound forced and wordy (‘the incident into a parade as grotesque as that of a fair, sometimes into a spectacle more you’re talking to me about’, ‘entirely ignorant of the matter you refer to’). magnificent than that of the Opera… The version offered in this translation (‘I don’t know what on earth iv v INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION you’re talking about’) may be quite brusque, but at least it sounds like attention has to be given to Voltaire’s frequent references to old monetary something the old man would actually say. currencies: not only the French écu, livre, and franc, but also the Spanish pistole and maravédis, the ancient Greek obole, the Venetian sequin, and A further example may stand for many others that might be cited. the widely circulated piastre. Some versions simply leave these words After Candide has killed two monkeys whom he erroneously believes untranslated, with or without an explanatory footnote. I have reasoned have been attacking two young girls, he muses, that, even if it could be computed, the actual monetary value of such currencies in modern terms is of far less significance than the simple Ce sont peut-être deux demoiselles de condition, et cette aventure peut nous impact a sum of money has upon modern readers. And so, the currencies procurer de très grands avantages dans le pays. (ch.16) above have been translated into either ‘gold coins’ or ‘pounds’. Candide offers a police officer diamonds that are each worth ‘three thousand gold Even granted the slightly formalised register of the French, three modern coins’ (trois mille pistoles), and is persuaded to increase an offer for safe versions, again, heighten the formality even further into contrived passage from ‘ten thousand pounds’, to ‘twenty thousand’, and finally to ‘translationese’: ‘thirty thousand’ (dix mille piastres...vingt mille...trente mille).

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