Candide

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For the Bernstein operetta based on the book, see Candide (operetta).

**Title** **Candide, or Optimism**
Author	Voltaire
Original title	Candide, ou l'Optimisme
Country	France
Language	French
Genre(s)	Satire, Picaresque novel
Publisher
Released	1759

Candide, ou l'Optimisme, ("Candide, or Optimism") (1759) is a picaresque novel by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire never openly admitted to having written the controversial Candide; the work is signed with a pseudonym: "Monsieur le docteur Ralph", literally "Mister Doctor Ralph."

Sardonic in outlook, it follows the naïve protagonist Candide from his first exposure to the precept that "all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds," and on through a series of adventures that dramatically disprove that precept even as the protagonist clings to it.

The novel satirizes naïve interpretations of the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz and is a showcase of the horrors of the 18th century world. In Candide, Leibniz is represented by the philosopher Pangloss, the tutor of the title character. Despite a series of misfortunes and misadventures, which include being present at the Lisbon Earthquake, Pangloss continually asserts that "Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles" ("All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds"). The novel ends with Candide finally rejecting the optimism espoused by Pangloss, saying, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin" ("It is necessary to cultivate our garden").

Most of the characters in the novel go through much physical torture at the hands of a variety of people. However, Voltaire also presents a utopian society, when Candide and his servant Cacambo go to the city of El Dorado, a mythical place in South America, where there is so much gold that it is not seen as valuable. They leave it in order to find Cunegonde and take some of the gold to a place where they can spend it.

There is a much lesser known second part to the novel, in which Candide leaves the garden in Turkey. After many more adventures and his marriage to another woman, he settles in Denmark, and gains a high position in the royal court. Most scholars consider this second part of Candide to be apocryphal.

1 Characters
2 Trivia
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Characters

Candide, the protagonist
Cunégonde, Candide's cousin and love interest
Dr. Pangloss, Candide's tutor
Cacambo, Candide's valet
Martin, Candide's travelling companion
Paquette, maid for Cunégonde's family
The Baron, Cunégonde's adoptor
The Old Woman, Cunégonde's maid
Jacques the Anabaptist, Candide's benefactor

[edit] Trivia

Candide makes a passing reference to the fictional Pope Urban X as the father of a character. According to an endnote which first appears in an 1829 edition, Voltaire used "extreme discretion" in ascribing an illegitimate daughter to a fictional Pope instead of a real one. The last pontiff to bear the name Urban was Pope Urban VIII.

During the part where Don Fernando d'Ibaraa Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza orders him to be married to Cunegonde, Candide "did not dare to say she was his sister, because she was not; and though a lie of this nature proved of great service to one of the ancients..." This is a reference to the book of Genesis in the Bible, where Abraham lies to the Pharaoh of Egypt, and tells him that Sarah is his sister and not his wife.