Voltaire

1
Voltaire
Ashley Rhoden and Brandon Robinson
2
Early Life

• Francois Marie Arouet (pen name Voltaire) was
  born on November 21, 1694 in Paris.
• the fourth of five children, to a well-to-do
  public official
• young Voltaire was shaped by his contacts with
  the English aristocrat, freethinker,and Jacobite
  Lord Bolingbroke.
• prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris he
  also acquired a first-class education
• Father was frustrated that he wanted to become a
  writer

3
The English Period (17261729)

• Voltaire's transition into his mature philosophe
  identity began
• Voltaire met Bolingbroke, Jonathan Swift, and
  John Gay
• knew the other Newtonians (followers of Isaac
  Newton) and soon became proficient enough in
  English to write letters and fiction
• Visited Holland and became close with the
  journalists there

4
A Change of Direction

• Received his fathers inheritance so he never
  struggled financially in his life
• fall of 1732, the next stage in his career began
  and he lived in the royal court of Versailles, a
  sign that his re-establishment in French society
  was complete
• scandal forced him to flee Paris and to establish
  himself permanently at the Du Châtelet family
  estate
• Officials granted Voltaire permission to re-enter
  Paris in1729, turned from poet to philosophe

5
New Beginnings

• Married Emilie du Châtele
• Voltaires ideas for writing letters about the
  darker side of things were inspired by Swifts
  Gullivers Travels
• Votaire wrote letters about several aspects of
  English society titled Letters On England
• Eventually wrote about English religion and
  Parliament
• Letters On England was published without
  Voltaires consent
• Ran away to Cirey, England with du Châtele

6
An Influential Name

• 1745, named the Royal Historiographer of France,
  bestowed upon him from Louis XIV and the Swedish
  King Charles II and accepted invitation to court
  in Prussia
• Essais sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations
  (1751)
• began to craft an anti-Leibnizian discourse in
  the 1740s
• satire of the President of the Royal Academy of
  Sciences of Berlin exiled him from Prussia

7
Here to Stay

• Settled in Geneva
• Became a newly self-conscious philosophes
  concerned with political and intellectual change
• Encyclopédiste was realeased scandal occurs
• Dictionnaire philosophique, his book republished
  his articles from the original Encyclopédie
• Candide, ou l'Optimisme, text is a serious attack
  on Leibnizian philosophy
• Died in 1778

8
The Enlightenment Period

• 18th century cultural changes characterized by a
  loss of faith in religion, science, and
  democratic republic
• Enlightenment ideas were strongly influenced by
  the Constitution of the U.S.
• Europe-wide movement

9
In Relation to Candide

• Dr. Pangloss absolute Optimism is a mockery of
  the philosophy of an Enlightenment thinker named
  Leibniz
• El Dorado Voltaires vision of an ideal society.
  

10
Each player must accept the cards life deals him
or her but once they are in hand, he or she
alone must decide how to play the cards in order
to win the game. -Voltaire