"Cliff Notes - Candide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

BUENOS AIRES--Chapter 13. Candide, pursued by the police, flees from Buenos Aires accompanied by Cacambo.

PARAGUAY--Chapters 14-15. Candide flees to the Jesuit encampment in Paraguay where he stabs the young baron.

THE LAND OF THE BIGLUGS--Chapter 16. Candide kills two monkeys and is nearly eaten by the Biglugs, called Oreillons in the original and in some translations.

ELDORADO--Chapters 17-18. Candide travels to the fabled land of Eldorado, but decides to leave.

SURINAM--Chapter 19. Candide and Cacambo separate and Candide finds a new companion, the scholar Martin.

ON THE ATLANTIC--Chapter 20. Candide and Martin discuss philosophy as they travel to France.

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: III. EUROPE AND TURKEY

OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE--Chapter 21. Candide and Martin continue their discussion and debate whether or not to visit France.

PARIS--Chapter 22. Candide and Martin travel to Paris via Bordeaux. Candide is introduced to the pleasures and pitfalls of Parisian life.

PORTSMOUTH HARBOR, ENGLAND--Chapter 23. Candide witnesses the execution of a British admiral.

VENICE--Chapters 24-26. While awaiting Cunegonde, Candide meets Paquette and Brother Giroflee, Lord Pococurante, the six kings, and is at last reunited with Cacambo.

AT SEA/CONSTANTINOPLE--Chapters 27-28. Candide is reunited with Pangloss and the young baron whom he ransoms in Constantinople, along with Cacambo.

PROPONTIS (the Sea of Marmara, in what is today Turkey)--Chapters 29-30. Candide finds and marries Cunegonde. They settle down on a farm with their friends to cultivate their "garden."

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: THE STORY

[All quotations in this section are from Robert M. Adams's translation of Candide, found in Literature of Western Culture Since the Renaissance (ed. Maynard Mack), vol. 2 of Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 4th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980).]

^^^^^^^^^^CANDIDE: CHAPTER 1

Candide opens in Westphalia, a principality of Germany, at the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. In this first chapter, you meet Candide and many of the other characters who will join him in his adventures. Some major themes of the novel are presented and the lively, satiric tone of the narration is set. The baron's name itself is meant to deride the overblown names of many German petty nobles.

Voltaire first introduces the readers to the inhabitants of Castle Thunder-ten-tronckh: Candide; the baron and baroness; their son; their beautiful daughter, Cunegonde; and the philosophy tutor Pangloss. Candide is an honest, simple soul rumored to be the illegitimate son of the baron's sister. His character is briefly sketched because his name sums him up. For the French word "candide" implies not only honesty but also innocence, naivete, and purity. Keep this in mind as you follow Candide through his adventures. To what extent does he live up to his name? What evidence do you have that he is perhaps not as naive as you might expect? Some readers have seen Candide as a novel of apprenticeship--that is, a novel that traces a character's development from adolescence to maturity. In order to understand Candide's development, you must understand where he began.

The members of the baron's family are described briefly and humorously: the baron (a big fish in a little pond); his fat, dignified wife; his beautiful daughter and worthy son. Voltaire's humor is most pointed in his description of the baron, a great lord, not because of any personal merit but because his castle has a door and windows. As is often the case in Candide, Voltaire's humor here has more than one target. He is poking fun not only at a man with an inflated sense of his own importance but at a society that could, in fact, consider such a person to be important.

After the family members are introduced, the philosophy teacher, Pangloss, is presented. But Voltaire, rather than describing the man or his character, chooses to portray Pangloss to the reader through his philosophy. Voltaire tells you what Pangloss does: He teaches philosophy--specifically, metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology--of which the hallmark is his belief that this is the "best of all possible worlds." Pangloss is the first character to speak, and when he does speak, he begins the endless process of discussion and philosophizing that is so characteristic of the novel.

NOTE: "Metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology" is a hodge-podge word referring to three real fields of philosophy: metaphysics, the study of "being" or existence; theology, the study of God; cosmology, the study of the universe. Voltaire adds an ironic twist with "-loonigo-" and its association with stupidity or craziness. Voltaire once again is making fun here, alluding to Leibniz's philosophical system, which one critic had described as "physico-geometrico-theological doctrine." Voltaire substituted "cosmology"--in modified form--in obvious mockery of Leibniz's disciple, Wolff, who employed that term to describe the general laws of the universe.

Pangloss is at the heart of the central issue of Candide, the attack on philosophical optimism, a widespread belief in the 18th century. The emptiness of Pangloss's reasoning is apparent from the outset. The very name of his course of study and the proofs he offers that this is the best of all possible worlds expose the shallowness of his reasoning.

NOTE: LEIBNIZ AND PHILOSOPHICAL OPTIMISM After reading Candide, the reader tends to link philosophical optimism with the empty, tortured justification of everything good and ill personified by Pangloss. Voltaire's satire is so devastating that you may be unaware that philosophical optimism was a serious study by one of the world's great philosophers, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716).

Leibniz was a mathematician and scientist as well as a philosopher. His studies of being and of logic, and his concept of a dynamic but harmonious universe, had a great influence on later thinkers. The work Voltaire particularly attacked was one of Leibniz's earlier and simpler works, Theodicy (1710), a defense of God. In it, Leibniz tries to justify the existence of evil in a world which a presumably good God created. These were difficult concepts to understand and they were inevitably simplified by his follower, Christian Wolff, and, especially, by an admirer, the English satirical poet Alexander Pope.

Leibniz's ideas became transformed into Pope's maxim "What is, is right." Voltaire saw that this viewpoint was, in reality, a pessimistic one, because it denied hope. If what is, is right, then there is no need for change; human misery and evil are merely links in an incomprehensible chain of ultimate good. But such reasoning is small consolation to the victims of slavery, warfare, and persecution. For Voltaire, who believed in change and social reform, it was an unacceptable explanation. Leibniz, as the originator of this philosophy, thus became the target of his satire.