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Overview
With its vibrant new translation and perceptive introduction this new edition of Voltaire’s masterpiece belongs in the hands of every reader pondering our assumptions about human behavior and our place in the world. Candide tells of the hilarious adventures of the naïve Candide, who doggedly believes that “all is for the best” even when faced with injustice, suffering, and despair. Controversial and entertaining, Candide is a book that is vitally relevant today in our world pervaded by—as Candide would say—“the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.”
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780140455106 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 02/24/2009 |
| Series: | Penguin Classics Series |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Sales rank: | 31,775 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Michael Wood (introducer) is currently Straut Professor of English at Princeton. His books include Stendhal, America in the Movies, The Magician's Doubts, Franz Kafka, and The Road to Delphi.
Theo Cuffe (translator) has also translated a selection of Voltaire's short stories for Penguin, Micromégas and Other Short Fictions.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter Three
How Candide escaped from among the Bulgars,
and what became of him
Nothing was as beautiful, smart, dazzling, or well ordered as the two armies. The trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums, and cannons created a harmony such as never existed in Hell. First of all, the cannons struck down almost six thousand men on each side. Then the muskets removed from the best of worlds between nine and ten thousand rogues infecting its surface. The bayonet was also the sufficient reason for the death of several thousand men. The total might well have come to some thirty thousand souls. Candide, trembling like a philosopher, hid himself as best he could during this heroic butchery.
Finally, while the two kings had the Te Deum sung, each in his camp, Candide decided to go elsewhere to reason over effects and causes. Climbing over heaps of dead and dying men, he arrived at a neighboring village that lay in ashes: it was an Avar village that the Bulgars had burnt down in accordance with the principles of international law. Old men covered in wounds watched their butchered wives die clasping their infants to their bleeding breasts. Girls who had been disemboweled after having sated the natural needs of some of the heroes were breathing their last. Others, covered in burns, were begging to be put out of their misery. Brains were splattered on the ground alongside severed arms and legs.
Candide fled as fast as he could to another village. This one belonged to the Bulgars, and the Avar heroes had treated it the same way. Stepping over palpitating limbs and climbing over ruins, Candide, carrying a few provisions in his bag, finally managed to get out of the theater of war, never forgetting Mademoiselle Cunégonde. His provisions ran out when he reached Holland, but having heard that everyone in that country was rich and Christian, he did not doubt that he would be treated as well as he had been at the castle of His Lordship the Baron before he was driven from it on account of Mademoiselle Cunégonde’s beautiful eyes.
He asked for alms from several grave personages, all of whom replied that if he continued plying this trade he would be locked up in a house of correction, where he would be taught how to work for a living.
Then he approached a man who had just addressed a big crowd for a whole hour on the topic of charity.
The orator eyed him suspiciously and asked, "What are you doing here? Did you come for the Good Cause?"
"There is no effect without a cause," Candide replied modestly. "Everything is necessarily interconnected and arranged for the best. I had to be driven out of the presence of Mademoiselle Cunégonde, run the gauntlet, and beg for bread until I can earn my own. All this could not be otherwise."
"My friend," the orator said, "do you believe that the Pope is the Antichrist?"
"I have never yet heard that he is," Candide replied. "But whether he is the Antichrist or not, I need bread."
"You don’t deserve any," the orator said. "Go away, you rogue, you wretch! Don’t come near me again as long as you live!"
The orator’s wife poked her head out the window and, seeing the man who doubted that the Pope was the Antichrist, poured out on his head a chamber pot full of ...
Merciful Heaven! To what excess ladies will carry the zeal of religion!
A man who had not been baptized, a good Anabaptist by the name of Jacques, saw the cruel and disgraceful manner in which one of his brothers, a featherless, two-legged being with a soul, was being treated.* He took him to his place, washed him, gave him bread and beer, made him a gift of two florins, and even wanted to teach him to work in his factory, which manufactured Persian fabrics in Holland. Candide almost prostrated himself before him, exclaiming, "Doctor Pangloss had told me that everything is for the best in this world. I am infinitely more moved by your extreme generosity than by the severity of that man in the black cloak and his wife."
The following day, Candide was out walking when he came across a beggar covered in pustules. He had lifeless eyes, a nose that was rotting away, a mouth that was twisted, black teeth, and a rasping voice. He coughed violently, spitting out a tooth every time.
* The Anabaptists were an extreme Protestant sect that did not believe in infant baptism–in their view only adult baptism was valid. They believed in absolute social and religious equality. "A featherless, two-legged being" is a humorous reference to Plato’s definition of man.
Table of Contents
Introduction Johnson Kent Wright xiii
Translator's Note xxvii
How Candide was raised in a noble mansion, and how he was driven away 1
What happened to Candide among the Bulgars 4
How Candide saved himself from the Bulgars, and what became of him 7
How Candide met his old philosophy teacher, Doctor Pangloss, and what had happened to him 10
Tempest, shipwreck, earthquake, and what happened to Doctor Pangloss, Candide, and Jacques the Anabaptist 14
How they had a beautiful auto-da-fe in order to put an end to the earthquake, and how Candide was flogged 18
How an old woman took care of Candide and how he got back his beloved 20
Cunegonde's story 22
What happened to Cunegonde, to Candide, to the Grand Inquisitor, and to a Jew 26
In what difficulty Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman reached Cadiz, and how they boarded a ship 28
The old woman's story 31
More about the old woman's misfortunes 35
How Candide was forced to leave lovely Cunegonde and the old woman 40
How Candide and Cacambo were greeted by the Jesuits of Paraguay 43
How Candide killed his dear Cunegonde's brother 47
What happened to the two travelers with two girls, two monkeys,and the savages known as Oreillons 50
Arrival of Candide and his valet in the land of Eldorado, and what they saw there 55
What they saw in Eldorado 60
How they got to to Surinam, and how Candide came to know Martin 67
What happened at sea to Candide and Martin 74
Candide and Martin approach the French coast and argue 78
What happened to Candide and Martin in France 80
Candide and Martin reach the British coast, and what they see there 94
Paquette and Friar Giroflee 96
Visit to Lord Pococurante, a nobleman of Venice 102
A dinner that Candide and Martin shared with six foreigners, and who they were 109
Candide's journey to Constantinople 114
What happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, etc. 119
How Candide found Cunegonde and the old woman 123
Conclusion 124
Suggested Reading 131
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Reading Group Guide
INTRODUCTION
Beginning with the expulsion of its eponymous hero from “the best of all possible castles” and the loss of his beloved Cunégonde, Candide takes the form of a classic journey story. Candide must endure a series of misfortunes and trials before he can be reunited with his beloved and regain a qualified kind of redemption. It is in the misfortunes that Candide and others suffer in the novel that Voltaire cuts through the pretensions, hypocrisies, and outright idiocies of the Age of Reason.
The philosopher Pangloss, Candide’s tutor, insists that they live in “the best of all possible worlds” and maintains that view through various sophistries, but reality tells a different story. In the course of the novel, Candide travels far and wide across Europe, South America (where he spends a pleasant month in the fabled land of Eldorado), and Asia in search of Cunégonde. Earthquakes, slavery, murder, floggings, hangings, the Spanish Inquisition, and other niceties of the era greet him on his way and serve to weaken his cherished optimism. He also encounters characters who view the world quite differently, most notably Martin, who asserts that he has “scarcely seen a town that did not desire the ruin of the next town, nor a family that did not wish to exterminate some other family” (p. 56). Early in the novel, while pondering the relationship between effects and causes, as he has been taught to do, Candide wanders into a war-ravaged village, where he sees “old men riddled with wounds . . . their wives lay dying, their throats cut, clutching their children . . . young girls in their last agonies, disemboweled after having satisfied the natural urges of various heroes . . .” (p. 8). This juxtaposition of abstract conceptualizing and real brutality underscores the gulf between human beliefs and human behaviors that runs throughout the novel, and the effect is amusing, disturbing, and deflating all at once. Man is capable of clever philosophizing, yes, but savagery, superstition, and ignorance still rule the day. The phrase “natural urges of various heroes” is characteristic of Voltaire’s piercing irony. In Voltaire’s world, as in ours, soldiers are not always heroes, priests are not always godly, and philosophers are not always very helpful in guiding us away from human folly.
Indeed, much of the fun of reading Candide lies in applying Voltaire’s ironic wit to the pretensions and hypocrisies of our own age. What would Voltaire say about our current political and religious leaders? How would he view the intellectual and artistic culture of our time? In this crisp new translation by Theo Cuffe, Voltaire speaks to us more sharply and clearly than ever.
ABOUT VOLTAIRE
(François-Marie Arouet) was born in 1694 and educated at a Jesuit school in Paris. Determined to pursue a literary career, he won a reputation as a writer of satirical plays, poetry, philosophy, and novels that resulted in spells of imprisonment in the Bastille, some of his books being banned, and eventual exile from France for his attacks on the Regent and criticism of the French government. In addition to Candide, his works include Zadig, Micromégas and Other Short Fictions, Letters on England, and Philosophical Dictionary. Voltaire died in 1778, after a triumphal return to Paris.
ABOUT THEO CUFFE
Theo Cuffe was educated in Dublin and at the Sorbonne. His translations include Voltaire’s Micromégas and Other Short Fictions for Penguin Classics.
ABOUT MICHAEL WOOD
Michael Wood is Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University and the author of The Magician’s Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction, Franz Kafka, and The Road to Delphi: The Life and Afterlife of Oracles.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
