Friday, December 7, 2012
Frederick the Great and Voltaire
I find it sort of childish that Voltaire would pull such a move as putting mean allusions to Frederick the Great in "Candide". He and Voltaire were such good friends back in the day before they had a little falling out. The problem they had was that he accused Frederick's army of pederasty, a sick crime. The reason for bring this point up
in his “Candide” is to not only get back at Frederick for exiling him from
Germany, but to also show that other armies, as well as Fredericks, can get out
of hand and out of control and end up doing things that were not originally
planned (raping people, sacking cities, etc.). I don't care what Ol' Freddy did to Voltaire, that was a low blow, a place where he shouldn't have gone, especially since Voltaire was himself thought to maybe be part of Voltaire's "summer home" in Sanssouci, where it was thought that most this pederasty went down.
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1 comment:
I absolutely agree that Voltaire's petty bickering is mean spirited and unnecessary. However, the fact that Voltaire is openly critisizing a monarch and fully utilizing his freedom of speech In Candide was huge. It marked the begining of a new type of provocative writer that critisized his own society and even those close to him in hope of something new. Its true that authors like Confuscius were similar, but Voltaire was the first in Europe, as far as I can tell, that went so far in his accusations and satire.
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