Candide is a 1759 French satire by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not outright rejecting optimism, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is known for its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. With a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman or picaresque novel, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. Today, Candide is recognised as Voltaire's magnum opus.
Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1784: Western North Carolina declared itself an independent state under the name of Franklin. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Franklin> 1914: In their first major action of World War I, the British Expeditionary Force defeated German troops in Mons, Belgium. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mons> 1929: Arabs began attacking Jews in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, killing over sixty people in two days. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre> 1939: World War II: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a 10-year, mutual non-aggression treaty that was eventually broken when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union two years later. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact> 1958: The People's Liberation Army began an intense artillery bombardment of Quemoy, sparking the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis> 1989: Singing Revolution: Approximately two million people joined their hands to form an over 600 km (373 mi) long human chain across the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet republics. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: typhoon (n): A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane or cyclone, which results in wind speeds of 118km/h or above <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/typhoon> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras. --Will Cuppy <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Cuppy> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
