Voltaire and the Century of Light

Voltaire and the Century of Light PDF Author: Alfred Owen Aldridge
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400866952
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
Taking an approach different from (hat of earlier biographers, A. Owen Aldridge examines Voltaire's literary and intellectual career chronologically, using the methods both of comparative literature and of the history of ideas. The resulting biography portrays a fascinating personality as well as a great writer and thinker. Voltaire is revealed not only through his correspondence, here extensively quoted, but through the statements others made about him in anecdotes, memoirs, and other contemporary documents. New information is introduced regarding Voltaire's sojourn in England, his later relations with English men of letters, his domestic turmoils at the court of Frederick the Great, and his contact with French contemporaries such as Montesquieu and Diderot. For the first time in any biography, attention is given to Voltaire's extensive knowledge of Spanish literature and its influence on his own work, particularly Candide. Voltaire is portrayed as a conscious participant in the Enlightenment. In his early years he was interested primarily in aesthetics and abstract philosophy; later, he passionately dedicated himself to humanitarian causes with ideological implications. Professor Aldridge brings forward evidence pointing to the contrast between these two periods in Voltaire's life. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Voltaire and the Century of Light

Voltaire and the Century of Light PDF Author: Alfred Owen Aldridge
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400866952
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
Taking an approach different from (hat of earlier biographers, A. Owen Aldridge examines Voltaire's literary and intellectual career chronologically, using the methods both of comparative literature and of the history of ideas. The resulting biography portrays a fascinating personality as well as a great writer and thinker. Voltaire is revealed not only through his correspondence, here extensively quoted, but through the statements others made about him in anecdotes, memoirs, and other contemporary documents. New information is introduced regarding Voltaire's sojourn in England, his later relations with English men of letters, his domestic turmoils at the court of Frederick the Great, and his contact with French contemporaries such as Montesquieu and Diderot. For the first time in any biography, attention is given to Voltaire's extensive knowledge of Spanish literature and its influence on his own work, particularly Candide. Voltaire is portrayed as a conscious participant in the Enlightenment. In his early years he was interested primarily in aesthetics and abstract philosophy; later, he passionately dedicated himself to humanitarian causes with ideological implications. Professor Aldridge brings forward evidence pointing to the contrast between these two periods in Voltaire's life. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Candide

Candide PDF Author: Voltaire Voltaire
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1681959526
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Candide by Voltaire from Coterie Classics All Coterie Classics have been formatted for ereaders and devices and include a bonus link to the free audio book. “Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?' Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?” ― Voltaire, Candide Candide is a young man who is raised in wealth to be an optimist but when he is forced to make his own way in the world, his assumptions and outlook are challenged.

The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire

The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire PDF Author: Nicholas Cronk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113982757X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
As a leading thinker of the European Enlightenment, Voltaire is a central figure in France's collective cultural memory. The popularity of Candide has made him perhaps best known as a writer of tales. Yet these represent only a fraction of his entire œuvre. Voltaire created a style of authorship which made him the most famous writer in Europe and made him a figurehead for a certain style of writing and thinking. This Companion covers his plays, fiction, pamphlets, correspondence, biblical criticism, and historical, political and philosophical thought, to give a wide-ranging view of his writings. The most comprehensive book on Voltaire available in English, it makes accessible the most recent research in France as well as the English-speaking world, in a series of original essays and a guide to sources. The essays demonstrate why Voltaire remains an essential point of reference in defining the modern intellectual today.

The life of Voltaire

The life of Voltaire PDF Author: Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
The life of Voltaire is a biography by Evelyn Beatrice Hall. François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778) aka Voltaire was a French Enlightenment author, historian, and philosopher. He was an ardent campaigner of liberty of speech, autonomy of religion, and separation of church and country.

Voltaire

Voltaire PDF Author: John Morley
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752441062
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Reproduction of the original: Voltaire by John Morley

Voltaire in Love

Voltaire in Love PDF Author: Nancy Mitford
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175786
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The inimitable Nancy Mitford’s account of Voltaire’s fifteen-year relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet—the renowned mathematician who introduced Isaac Newton’s revolutionary new physics to France—is a spirited romp in the company of two extraordinary individuals as well as an erudite and gossipy guide to French high society during the Enlightenment. Mitford’s story is as delicious as it is complicated. The marquise was in love with another mathematician, Maupertuis, while she had an unexpected rival for Voltaire’s affections in the future Frederick the Great of Prussia (and later in the philosophe’s own niece). There was, at least, no jealous husband to contend with: the Marquis du Châtelet, Mitford assures us, behaved perfectly. The beau monde of Paris was, however, distraught at the idea of the lovers’ brilliant conversation going to waste on the windswept hills of Champagne, site of the Château de Cirey, where experimental laboratories, a darkroom, and a library of more than twenty-one thousand volumes enabled them to pursue their amours philosophiques. From time to time the threat of impending arrest would send Voltaire scurrying across the border into Holland, but his irrepressible charm—and the interventions of powerful friends—always made it possible for him resume his studies with the cherished marquise.

The Philosophy of Voltaire - Essential Works

The Philosophy of Voltaire - Essential Works PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 2955

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Book Description
This unique collection of Voltaire's most renowned philosophical books has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards. François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. He was an outspoken advocate of several 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. Table of Contents: A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY LETTERS ON ENGLAND TREATISE ON TOLERANCE CANDIDE ZADIG (The Book of Faith) MICROMEGAS THE HURON (Pupil of Nature) THE PRINCESS OF BABYLON MEMNON THE PHILOSOPHER THE BLACK AND THE WHITE THE WORLD AS IT GOES ANDRÉ DES TOUCHES AT SIAM BABABEC PLATO'S DREAM PLEASURE IN HAVING NO PLEASURE THE GOOD BRAHMIN THE TWO COMFORTERS ANCIENT FAITH AND FABLE THE STUDY OF NATURE A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MARCUS AURELIUS AND A RECOLLET FRIAR DIALOGUE BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND A JESUIT DIALOGUES BETWEEN LUCRETIUS AND POSIDONIUS DIALOGUE BETWEEN A CLIENT AND HIS LAWYER DIALOGUE BETWEEN MADAME DE MAINTENON AND MADEMOISELLE DE L'ENCLOS DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SAVAGE AND A BACHELOR OF ARTS

Voltaire: Treatise on Tolerance

Voltaire: Treatise on Tolerance PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521649698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Voltaire is widely known as the author of a literary masterpiece, Candide, while his reputation as a thinker rests largely on his Philosophical Letters and Philosophical Dictionary. He is equally renowned as a critic of the forces of superstition and fanaticism, and a champion of freedom of thought and belief. The works presented here, in a new English translation, are among the most important and characteristic texts of the Enlightenment, and bring together all three aspects of Voltaire: the writer, the doer and the philosophe. Originating in Voltaire's campaign to exonerate Jean Calas, they are works of polemical brilliance, informed by his deism and humanism and by Enlightenment values and ideals more generally. The issues which they raise, concerning questions of tolerance and human dignity, are still highly relevant to our own times. This volume presents them together with an introduction by Simon Harvey and useful notes on further reading.

Voltaire and Reform in the Light of the French Revolution

Voltaire and Reform in the Light of the French Revolution PDF Author: Renée Waldinger
Publisher: Librairie Droz
ISBN:
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description


The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment PDF Author: Anthony Pagden
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191636711
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters tells nothing less than the story of how the modern, Western view of the world was born. Cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Pagden explains how, and why, the ideal of a universal, global, and cosmopolitan society became such a central part of the Western imagination in the ferment of the Enlightenment - and how these ideas have done battle with an inward-looking, tradition-oriented view of the world ever since. Cosmopolitanism is an ancient creed; but in its modern form it was a creature of the Enlightenment attempt to create a new 'science of man', based upon a vision of humanity made up of autonomous individuals, free from all the constraints imposed by custom, prejudice, and religion. As Pagden shows, this 'new science' was based not simply on 'cold, calculating reason', as its critics claimed, but on the argument that all humans are linked by what in the Enlightenment were called 'sympathetic' attachments. The conclusion was that despite the many tribes and nations into which humanity was divided there was only one 'human nature', and that the final destiny of the species could only be the creation of one universal, cosmopolitan society. This new 'human science' provided the philosophical grounding of the modern world. It has been the inspiration behind the League of Nations, the United Nations and the European Union. Without it, international law, global justice, and human rights legislation would be unthinkable. As Anthony Pagden argues passionately and persuasively in this book, it is a legacy well worth preserving - and one that might yet come to inherit the earth.