Candide or optimism analysis. History of foreign literature of the 17th-18th centuries

Philosophical and satirical story by the famous French writer The Enlightenment era “Candide, or Optimism” was created in the late 50s of the 18th century. One of the most popular works Voltaire received unexpected fate. For a long time it was banned because of “obscenity,” and the writer himself either admitted his authorship or renounced it.

The starting point for the creation of “Candide” was the real historical event– Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755. In the story it takes central place, in which they diverge life paths Candide and the philosopher Pangloss, a love affair is formed story line Candide and Cunegonde and the real adventures of the main character begin.

From a compositional point of view, it is at this point that artistic events reach their culmination. Before arriving in Lisbon, Candide wandered aimlessly around the earth, but the discovery of his dead beloved activated him and threw him into the thick of life. A peaceful philosopher, under the influence of love, instantly turns into the protector of his lady: first he kills a rich Jew, then an inquisitor. Upon the heroes’ arrival in South America, Candide pierces Cunegonde’s brother, who does not want to see his sister married to a man without seventy-two generations of ancestors, with a sword, and does it so naturally, as if he had been doing just this all his life. However, all the murders in the story are purely external character. Hanged, burned, stabbed and raped characters invariably turn out to be alive due to miraculous circumstances and the skill of the healers. Thus, the author partly justifies the second title of his story - “Optimism”, partly gives the reader the opportunity to have fun in best traditions picaresque novel.

The adventure beginning in Candide is incredibly strong. The main character's travels around Europe, South America and the countries of the Middle East serve as the basis for revealing the world order contemporary to Voltaire. The writer shows the historical and cultural realities of his time (for example, military expedition Portugal and Spain against the Paraguayan Jesuits in 1756 or Japanese custom trample on a Christian crucifix after trading with the Dutch), as well as legends floating in society (about wonderful country El Dorado). By the way, it is the mythical state of universal happiness and contentment that becomes in the story a contrast to reality the existing world. Only in El Dorado do people don’t take money for lunch, don’t steal, don’t go to prison, don’t sue each other. They have everything they need to be happy, and this is certainly best country of all possible. In the ordinary world, contrary to the rantings of the teacher Candide, the philosopher Pangloss and his real prototype, German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz – everything is not at all for the better.

The main character wearing telling name Candide (that is, “sincere”, “simple-minded”), at first accepts the words of his teacher as the truth, but life teaches him the opposite. Every person the young man meets tells horror stories own life. Misfortunes accompany characters, regardless of their social status: in “Candide” life is equally bad for both royalty and ordinary people. Feminine beauty Cunegonde, for example, becomes a real curse for a girl: all men desire her, but no one except Candide wants to possess the beauty legally.

In the story “Candide, or Optimism,” Voltaire ironizes social ideas and vices, culture and religion, feelings and actions. The French enlightener, through the mouth of his hero, the Venetian nobleman Pokucurante, speaks very unflatteringly about the imposition by society of an opinion about which cultural works a person should bow to. At the same time, the author also laughs at Pokucurante himself, because he sees in him a personality not so much rebellious as bending to social ideas.

In some of the characters' remarks, the author's irony develops into a whole anecdote. For example, Candide explains the murder of a Jew and a prelate by the fact that “... when a person is in love, jealous and flogged by the Inquisition, he does not remember himself.” Cunegonde, crying about the stolen diamonds, wonders what to live on next and very subtly, in a purely feminine way, notes: “Where can I find inquisitors and Jews who will give me the same amount again?”

The satirical beginning in the story is inseparable from the philosophical. “Candide, or Optimism” ends with the wisdom of the Turkish elder, who told the heroes how to live in a world filled with evil and suffering. According to the Eastern sage, a person’s true happiness lies in work, and not scattered throughout the earth, but concentrated on a small area of one’s garden.

Philosophical stories. "Candide, or Optimism."

In 1746 Voltaire writes prose work entitled “The World as It Is, or the Vision of Babuk,” with which he opens a series of novels and stories that have gone down in the history of literature under the name philosophical. He continued to perform in this genre until 1775, that is, for almost thirty years.

It is remarkable that Voltaire himself did not attach serious importance to these “trinkets,” as he called them. He wrote them with extraordinary ease, “jokingly,” mainly for the amusement of his high-society friends. Great work it was worth persuading him to publish these works - at first they were distributed in lists.. Today philosophical novels and Voltaire's stories are perhaps the most valuable part of his legacy. Let's focus on one of best works Voltaire of this genre - his famous philosophical story "Candide, or Optimism". It was written in 1759 and became important milestone not only in the development of the philosophical genre, originating from Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters,” but also in the history of all educational thought.

At first glance, Voltaire's story is purely entertaining. It is structured as a series of adventures that its hero, a young man named Candide, experiences. By the will of fate, he finds himself in different parts of the world, meets many people, experiences all sorts of misfortunes and failures, loses and finds friends again, finds himself in the most unimaginable and incredible situations. There is also a love motive in the story. Living at first in the castle of the German baron Tunder den Tronck, Candide falls in love with him beautiful daughter Cunegonde. But since Candide cannot count several generations of eminent ancestors in his family, Cunegonde’s father, after the kiss that Cunegonde and Candide exchanged, expels him. Subsequently, the baron's castle is attacked by enemy troops. Cunegonde, like Candide, begins to wander around the world, and Candide tries to find her during his wanderings.

Thus, the story is constructed as a kind of adventure novel - a genre very popular among readers - Voltaire's contemporaries. At the same time, Voltaire’s story, with all the seemingly inherent features of the adventure genre, is rather a parody of it. Voltaire takes his heroes through so many adventures, following each other at a breakneck pace, and the adventures of the heroes themselves are such that it is impossible to survive them to a real person no way possible. Heroes are killed, but not completely; they are hanged, but by some miracle they remain alive; they find themselves at sea on a sinking ship and are saved, although all the other people there die, etc. The action of the story moves from Germany to Portugal, then to Spain, to America, then the heroes return to Europe, in the end they live somewhere in Turkey. This parody, inherent in the entire narrative as a whole, sets the reader in a special mood from the very beginning. It allows him not to take the eventful side of the narrative entirely seriously, but to focus his main attention on those thoughts that Voltaire considers necessary to express in the course of the events depicted, most often putting them into the mouths of his heroes. The story is about the meaning of human life, about freedom and necessity, about the world as it is, about what is more in it - good or evil. At this time, the political and social struggle, and Voltaire, as an educator, strives to be at the level of ideological disputes, the essence of which he conveys in an extremely concentrated form in his work. But “Candide, or Optimism” is a philosophical story not only in terms of the depth of the questions raised in it. The main interest in it is the clash of ideas, the bearers of which Voltaire makes two heroes - the philosophers Pangloss and Martin; they appear in the story as Candide's teachers and express two points of view on the world. One of them (Pangloss) is an optimistic assessment of what is happening, the other (Marten) - on the contrary, comes down to pessimism and consists in recognizing the eternal imperfection of a world in which evil rules.

These points of view on life in Voltaire’s story seem to summarize the development philosophical thought in the eighteenth century. In Pangloss's statements, the philosophy of the German scientist Leibniz (1646 - 1716), very popular at that time, appears in a generalized form. In Martin’s statements one can hear echoes of the skeptical sentiments of the entire eighteenth century. Voltaire tests these philosophies on the fate of Candide, who, based on his own experience, must decide which of his teachers is right. Thus, Voltaire argues for an empirical approach to resolving philosophical questions. Citing in the story many facts that are in one way or another connected with the lives of the characters, he considers them as material for proving or refuting the theories they put forward. Characters the stories are in no way full of characters; their function is to serve the disclosure of ideas, and they themselves (primarily Pangloss-Marten) are bearers of philosophical theses. Central character story - the young man Candide, whose fate should reveal the truth, bears this name for a reason. Translated, it means “simpleton.” In all life situations Candide shows naivety and simplicity. The name of the hero, his human appearance should emphasize the impartiality and sincerity of the conclusion to which he ultimately comes.

By making the main character lead the idea, its fate, Voltaire subordinates the composition of the work to these tasks. He builds his story according to a logical principle. The connecting link in it is not so much the plot as the development of thought. At the beginning of the narrative, Voltaire turns his main attention to the philosophy of Pangloss, which Candide accepts. Its essence is concentrated in the phrase repeated many times by Pangloss and Candide - “Everything is for the best in this best of worlds.” Then Martin appears, and Candide becomes acquainted with his views. Then, at the end of the story, he draws his conclusion. Thus, the story is built, as it were, on the replacement of one system of views by another and a conclusion that draws a line under the thoughts of the characters. Since the views of Martin and Pangloss are opposed to each other, this introduces an atmosphere of controversy into the story.

How does Voltaire resolve this philosophical dispute in his work? First of all, it must be said that Voltaire categorically disagrees with the philosophy of optimism. And if he treats Martin’s philosophy with a certain degree of sympathy as a philosophy, in to a greater extent corresponding to the truth of life, then in Leibniz’s philosophy the writer sees a manifestation of not only short-sightedness, but also blindness and stupidity, which, in his opinion, is characteristic of the human race. In order to emphasize the complete contradiction of the philosophy of optimism with the truth of life, Voltaire exaggerates the sharp discrepancy between the situations in which Pangloss finds himself and his assessment of the current situation, which turns the image of Pangloss into a caricature. Yes, yours famous phrase“Everything is for the best in this best of all worlds,” Pangloss says at the moment when the ship he and Candide are on is sinking, when the terrible Lisbon earthquake occurs, when he was almost burned at the stake, etc. This adds to the narrative satirical wit. Already the name Pangloss, which Voltaire gives to the hero, means “know-it-all” in translation from Greek and speaks of the assessment that the author gives him. In addition, Voltaire paints an image with only one color - Pangloss is deaf to any reasonable arguments and behaves the same in all situations, he is always and in everything faithful to his philosophy, which Voltaire extremely primitivizes, reducing it to the already mentioned phrase - “everything is for the better.” in this best of all worlds."

The same task - exposing the theory of optimism as untenable - is served in the story by the selection of facts introduced by Voltaire into the narrative and taken from life. These are facts of predominantly one type - they demonstrate the existence of evil in the world, in which Voltaire distinguishes mainly two types. The first is the evil contained in nature itself. Voltaire demonstrates it in the story using the example of the Lisbon earthquake, which actually took place and carried away thousands human lives. The second type of evil is evil that comes from people who are unjust. social order. It manifests itself in abuse and perversion state power, in religious intolerance, in feudal oppression and wars, in class inequality, in colonial activities, etc., that is, Voltaire shows all the possible vices of the existing social system, what seemed to him the main obstacle on the way human society to a reasonable device, to progress. So philosophical content The story is connected by Voltaire with a topical socio-political orientation, which is manifested especially clearly in the ideal of social order that Voltaire draws in the story. Essentially this is an illustration of the writer’s positive political program.

Exposing all possible forms of injustice and violence against the individual, Voltaire contrasts them with the idea of personal and civil freedom, the dream of such social order, which, based on a solid law, could guarantee the independence and rights of each of its citizens. Such an ideal state in Candide is happy country Eldorado, a country of reason and justice, where human needs are fully satisfied. Voltaire paints a utopian picture of universal prosperity. Eldorado is a state ruled by an enlightened king, who greets Candide warmly and without courtly affectation - he kisses him on both cheeks, which to Candide’s contemporaries, accustomed to the ceremony of the French court, seemed like a kind of shock to the foundations of the existing regime. In Eldorado there is no clergy, and all the people are literate and profess deism - a philosophy that, as Voltaire himself believed, gave the most correct idea of the world. Since Eldorado is an enlightened state, it does not need to use any kind of violence against people, everyone consciously obeys reasonable laws. Courts and prisons are not needed here, since there are no criminals in the country. In El Dorado, science, laws and free human activity are most respected. There is no universal equality here; classes and property rights are preserved in the country, but property differences between its citizens are not as noticeable as in Europe.

The final conclusion that Voltaire draws in his work and to which he leads his hero Candide also has a certain political meaning. After many wanderings, Candide and his friends settle somewhere in Turkey, and one day there he meets a kind old man - a Turk. The Turk arouses his interest because he feels happy. The old man tells Candide that to achieve happiness one must work, since work drives away, as he believes, “three great evils from us - boredom, vice and need”7. “We must cultivate our garden,” 8 he says, and Candide repeats this phrase of the old man several times, summing up his reflections on the life and philosophical views of his teachers at the end of the story.

How to understand this phrase in the mouth of Candide? Of course, Voltaire puts a certain allegorical meaning into it, which can be understood in different ways. However, the most likely answer is the thought about the exhaustion of all philosophical disputes, about the need for fruitful work, active human activity; We are also talking about intervention in life with the aim of transforming it, about orientation not only towards criticism of the existing feudal regime, but also towards solving important practical problems of our time. Thus, Voltaire, with all the moderation of his socio-political position, demonstrates in Candide a certain maturity of educational thought, as it appears in early stage French Enlightenment.

Works of the third period- these are synthetic works that carry elements of the travel novel genre, educational novel, a satirical exposé novel. Voltaire creates philosophical parables, oriental tales. And all these elements together create special genre which Voltaire calls Philosophical tale.

Its features:

Voltaire's philosophical fairy tale is always a lesson in an entertaining, amusement form on some philosophical thesis, or is it a struggle, a protest against some existing philosophical teaching, common in his time.

From here it followed:

The main character of any philosophical fairy tale is Voltaire’s idea, thought. The characters' characters are not developed in detail. Heroes are needed as an illustration of this or that thought, as examples, as evidence of this or that philosophical thesis. In a philosophical fairy tale there is no concept of character, individuality, or personality of the hero. A hero is a mouthpiece, an exponent of one or another idea of the author. The philosophical fairy tale is characterized by the diversity of its interpretations of this plot. A fairy tale is usually based on grotesque material (“half of the people are sitting” Mayakovsky). The grotesque is an obligatory element of a fairy tale, very often a base grotesque, the bodily principle is brought to the fore (the old woman from Candide has lost half of her butt). This grotesque always plays a special comedic role. The most scary scenes They not only have a terrible, unaesthetic character, but are used as a base grotesque, in a comedic sense. The funny and the scary are combined, constantly changing places.

One of Voltaire's most famous philosophical tales is “Candide or Optimism” (simple-minded, indecisive, naive, unadapted).

According to the plot, this is the story of a search across the world for his beloved. In fact, this is a story about the life of the peoples of different countries of the East and Europe, about their customs, religions, habits, clothes, dances. This is a violent fight against the Catholic religion. This is a philosophical denunciation of Leibniz’s theory, which was very widespread in the time of Voltaire, that everything is beautiful in the world and that our world is the most beautiful of the worlds.

With official operetta optimism, which perceives life only in its external, funny form, without seeing what it really is - this is Voltaire’s goal. This philosophy of optimism is preached by a certain Pan Gloss, a man who suffered from every decent and indecent disease in the world, who was captured a million times, who is similar to Panurge Rabelais. Pangloss argues that the human will is completely free, we live in free country. And it is completely logical that a person is given a choice, when he commits a crime, to choose a punishment from those offered. Or go through the ranks of soldiers 36 times, who will hit him with whips, or 12 bullets in the forehead. Such absurdity, grotesque absurdity expresses the idea of ridiculing freedom and human independence.

Voltaire makes an absolutely professional logical phrase completely absurd.

How a wonderful auto-da-fé was arranged to get rid of the earthquake, and how Candide was flogged. Majestic style, majestic rhythm, but everything is absurd. It's about about a real earthquake in Lisbon. After the earthquake that destroyed three quarters of Lisbon, the sages of the country did not find a surer way to save them from final destruction than to arrange for the people a wonderful spectacle of auto-da-fé.

The phrase is illogical.

The second phrase repeats the same thing in other words. A ring of sermons in which there is neither beginning nor end, which entangle you in a kind of ring from which you cannot get out.

The University of Coimbra decreed that burning a few people with a small fire, but with great ceremony, was undoubtedly the surest way to stop the shaking of the earth.

The same thing is said, but this repetition indicates absurdity, stupidity, that thought is static, does not develop, and that all the dogmas that are given are static in essence.

Formal logic and absurdity of content:

As a result, they captured one Biscayan, who was caught having married his godfather, and two Portuguese who had trimmed the fat from a chicken before eating it; (what's the connection?) Dr. Pangloss and his student Candide were captured immediately after dinner, one for speaking, the other for listening with an approving air; Hypocrisy, creating an image of hypocrisy: Both were taken separately to extremely cool rooms, the inhabitants of which were never disturbed by the sun; How beautifully said about prison! A week later, both were dressed in sanbenito and crowned with paper miters; Since they were captured for different things, the punishments should be different: Mithra and Sanbenito Candida were painted with overturned fiery tongues and devils, which, however, had neither tails nor claws; Pangloss's devils were tailed and clawed, and tongues of fire stood straight;

Well, a very big difference!

In such attire they marched to the place of execution and listened to a very sublime sermon to the beautiful sounds of mournful chants; Candide was flogged in time with the singing, the Biscayan and the two who did not want to eat lard were burned, and Pangloss was hanged, although this was contrary to custom.

This is a huge paragraph with no periods, only semicolons. And the last sentence:

That same day, the earth shook again with a terrifying roar.

This last short little sentence cancels out this entire huge paragraph, which supposedly piles up all the measures taken to prevent an earthquake. That is, the style itself immerses us in this atmosphere of cheerful hypocrisy, in which we are participants in this process, and in which we understand the absurdity and hypocrisy of all the sermons that are preached.

What could be more beautiful, more agile, more magnificent and more harmonious than two armies! Trumpets, pipes, oboes, drums, cannons created music so harmonious that it does not happen in hell. The guns first killed about six thousand people on each side; then a gun battle rid the best of worlds of either nine or ten thousand idlers who desecrated its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient cause of death for several thousand people. Total number reached thirty thousand souls. Candide, trembling with fear, like a true philosopher, diligently hid during this heroic massacre.

Same style, the battle is called a massacre. All the delight in how this land was liberated from people is written in a satirical way.

So, Candide different countries, in love with Cunegonde, who is socially superior to him, thrown out of the castle with a kick in the ass, wanders, looking for his Cunegonde, who is captured by thousands of invaders, but remains as desired by Candide.

During his journey, Candide ends up in the country of Eldorado. Everyone here is happy, everything is fine, there are no wars and there is only one law: “no one should go out.” Because then everyone will understand how boring they live where nothing happens, where everything is ready, where people do nothing. The good that is associated with such a plant existence is denied.

The ending is connected with the fact that, having experienced all possible grief on earth, he finds his Cunegonde. She’s already ugly, but she bakes pies so well! And the heroes reunite, they are happy.

The whole small society was imbued with this laudable intention; everyone began to refine their abilities. A small plot of land bore a lot of fruit. Cunegonde, it is true, was very ugly, but she baked pies excellently; I embroidered the package; The old woman took care of the linen. Even Brother Giroflet came in handy: he became a very good carpenter, moreover - an honest man, and Pangloss sometimes said to Candide: “All events are inextricably linked in the best of possible worlds. If you had not been expelled from a beautiful castle with a healthy kick in the ass for loving Cunegonde, if you had not been taken by the Inquisition, if you had not walked all over America, if you had not pierced the baron with a sword, if you had not lost all your sheep from the glorious country Eldorado, you shouldn’t eat either lemon peel in sugar or pistachios right now. “You said it well,” answered Candide, “but we need to cultivate our garden.”

“Cultivate your garden” - that is, see what is around you, and appreciate what is around you, multiply what is around you, and put your soul, the work of your hands into what is around you.

The philosophy of pessimism, fashionable at that time, is also destroyed, thanks to Pangloss.

The general meaning of the work: the world is not as bad as the philosopher Martin says, but of course it is not the most beautiful of worlds.

This is what the maid says in Maupassant's La Vie.

“Tilling your garden” means accepting life as it comes and working to keep it going.

PRACTICAL COURSE

REFLECTION OF THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS OF THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN VOLTAIRE’S STORIES “CANDIDE, OR OPTIMISM” AND “THE SIMPLE-SOUND”

Plan

1. Philosophical story "Candide". Theme, genre, composition of the work.

2. The image of Candide, his characteristics.

3. Pangloss is a philosopher and optimist.

4. Other heroes of the story (Cunegonde, Martin, Giroflé, etc.). The author's attitude towards them.

Assignments for the preparatory period

1. Think about why the work has such a title.

2. Write out from explanatory dictionary definition of the word "optimism". How does Candide define this term?

3. Extract interesting things from the text philosophical reflections heroes.

4. Make logic diagrams, crosswords, puzzles, tests...

Literature

1. Klochkova L. A. “Everything is for the best in this best of worlds.” Two lessons on Voltaire’s story “Candide, or Optimism.” 9th grade // Foreign literature in educational institutions. - 2004. - No. 12. - P. 23 - 24.

2. Limborsky I.V. Voltaire and Ukraine // Foreign literature in educational institutions. - 1999. -No. Z, -S. 48-50.

3. Writers of France. - M., 1964.

Instructional and methodological materials

Voltaire had a dozen stories to write, which were called “philosophical.” They demanded increased attention to the philosophical views of the author himself, which he expressed not abstractly, but in specific persons and life situations. The narrative style was affected by the fact that Voltaire read sections of his works aloud in his salon as he wrote them.

The author constructed the narrative in the form of rapid events. His task is to quickly bring the event to the point at which “some kind of absurdity” appears and becomes visible. surrounding life" He also used Swift irony, when meaninglessness was demonstrated as an acceptable phenomenon for everyone. Voltaire's prose is thoroughly ironic and comic.

In the best " philosophical stories", the writer owned the story "Candide". Here, in a comical parody form, the wanderings of the main character Candide in search of his lost lover, Cunegonde, are described. Fate has thrown the characters into different corners world, including America. Candide - the embodiment of the naive common sense And moral purity which nature endowed him with. He traveled accompanied by his teacher, the philosopher Pangloss. If for Candide the world is full of amazing surprises, mysteries and miracles, then for Pangloss there was already an answer to everything: “Everything is for the best in this best of worlds.”

Each time the heroes tested the truth of Pangloss on themselves, or rather on their own bodies: they were beaten, hanged, burned at the stake, raped, pierced with swords, they drowned in the ocean, suffered from an earthquake, etc. Finally confused about who to trust - the teacher’s attractive idea of eternal harmony or his own feelings, which indicated something completely different, fate finally returned Cunegonde to him.

The reader of the work is presented not with characters, but with peculiar masks. The heroes personified different philosophical systems. Pangloss expressed the system of the German philosopher G. F. W. Leibniz, according to which a person from the cradle had in her mind the so-called “innate ideas” regarding the rationality and harmony of everything around her. It is contrasted with the philosophy of the Englishman J. Locke: one must trust not pre-given ideas about reality, but reality itself, which testifies to itself through the senses.

Candide is ready to believe in the sublime idealism of Pangloss, but he personal experience, the experience of his long-suffering body indicates exactly the opposite.

Voltaire openly laughed at Leibniz's philosophical statement that the world is dominated by a “pre-established harmony,” that is, whatever happens, happens for the good.

According to Shaftesbury, nature itself seemed to help man make morally perfect decisions. Voltaire criticized this idea, and in the story Candide suffered precisely from his moral laxity and naivety.

The plot of the story is subject to a single logic - the logic of a pendulum: from luck to bad luck and vice versa.

The ending of the work does not put an end to philosophical debate. The heroes settle somewhere in Turkey in a small garden. From the point of view of idealism, the garden is a miniature paradise, a magical corner, a poet's dream; from the point of view of practical philosophy, it is a miserable piece of land, unable to feed a crowd of life-weary heroes. The corresponding criterion could be applied to Candide’s beloved woman, Cunegonde. From the point of view of German idealism, the hero found his ideal of beauty and love, his dream came true; from the point of view of English practicality, Cunegonde grew old, lost her beauty, she was raped many times, she became irritable, her voice became hoarse, her hands were red and sinewy.

In general, Voltaire failed to refute the idealism of Leibniz and Shaftesbury, nor to defend the advantages of Locke's practicalism. The contradiction between these two truths is eternal driving force life itself.

The writer alone did not strive to set himself original artistic goals. He used artistic achievements contemporaries and predecessors. At the same time, he pursued a very specific goal - to propagate his philosophical, social, anti-clerical ideas.

Thus, in “Candida” the author comically rethought the plot scheme of the ancient Greek (to a certain extent, medieval knightly) novel: fate separates young, passionately in love heroes, they wander in foreign lands; the girl is forced into marriage, even sold to a brothel, but she remains chaste and faithful to her beloved. The young man experienced numerous adventures that strengthened his spirit. He even had relationships with other women, but his heart belonged only to his chosen one. Finally, the separated ones met and got married - so in ancient novels. In Voltaire we find a travesty variation of this traditional scheme.

In Voltaire's most significant story, the philosophical turning point that occurred in the writer's mind after returning from Prussia and the earthquake in Lisbon clearly appeared. Leibniz's optimistic idea of a "predetermined balanced harmony of good and evil", regarding the cause-and-effect relationships that reigned "in the best of worlds", was consistently rejected by the events in the life of the main character - the modest and charitable young man Candide.

In the story “Candide,” Voltaire used the structural techniques of the so-called “roguish” novel, forcing the hero to wander from country to country, meeting representatives of different social strata - from crowned heads to road bandits and worthless women.

The narrative was structured as a parody of an adventure novel - the heroes experience unusual life upheavals, adventures that occur at an amazing pace.

Candide – main character story, the personification of innocence, who, during the search for his beloved Cunegonde, acquires life experience And philosophical views. At first he is taught by Doctor Pangloss, who preaches a philosophy of optimism that says: “Everything is only for the best in this most beautiful of worlds.” However, constantly getting into trouble, suffering and tormenting (and most often Pangloss himself was the most punished by fate), Candide becomes disillusioned with the philosophy of his teacher. A completely opposite worldview is inherent in Candide’s friend Martin, his philosophy is pessimistic: the world is dominated by general hostility and unreasonableness; no time, no progress will help humanity - people will always remain beasts. Martin constantly cites facts that shatter the theory of optimism. Candide does not immediately accept Martin’s philosophy; he continues to hope for the possibility of improving society. By the end of the story, the heroes come to understand a third philosophy, different from the first two. This wisdom is revealed to them by a Turkish gardener who claims that in order to be happy, you need to “cultivate your garden.” He is convinced that “work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and want.”

Glossary:

– characteristics of Candida

- image of Candida

– Candida character

– describe the character of candida

– describe the character of Candida Voltaire

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Candide or optimism analysis. History of foreign literature of the 17th-18th centuries

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