(DOWNLOAD) "Voltaire's Satire on Frederick the Great: Candide, His Pothumous Memoires, Scarmendado, And Les Questions Sur L'encyclopedie." by Romance Notes " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Voltaire's Satire on Frederick the Great: Candide, His Pothumous Memoires, Scarmendado, And Les Questions Sur L'encyclopedie.
- Author : Romance Notes
- Release Date : January 22, 2007
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 212 KB
Description
TOWARDS the end of his Histoire de l'Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand (1759-63), Voltaire indulges in the sort of spurious high-mindedness that later generations found distasteful in his work, and which undermined, in certain quarters, his reputation as a moralist. Relating Peter the Great's alleged role in the death by torture of his heir the Tsarevitch Alexis (1690-1718), the Enlightenment historian reminds the reader that in modern times the standards of "universal criticism"--in other words, the requirement to take into account all printed and manuscript sources, as well as personal testimony--make it more difficult than hitherto to impugn unfairly the reputation of historical figures. "Il suffisait," he writes, "d'une ligne dans Tacite ou dans Suetone, et meme dans les auteurs des legendes, pour rendre un prince odieux au monde, et pour perpetuer son opprobre de siecle en siecle" (857-858). What Voltaire is in effect saying is that historians of the past routinely used biased and carefully selected data to formulate unbalanced and unfair judgments and that, by contrast, the modern historian should recognize the duty to be both impartial and truthful. Voltaire characteristically ignored this worthy ideal when, at the same time as he was writing the history of Peter the Great, he penned his Memoires pour servir a la vie de M. de Voltaire ecrits par lui-meme. These include a description of Frederick the Great which is partial, biased, and malicious, especially in relating the King's alleged homosexuality. How is it, we might ask, that could Voltaire act in a way wholly unfaithful to his own principles? Voltaire's Memoires only appeared after his death. There is nevertheless considerable evidence to suggest that he intended the manuscript for publication. A pirated edition was printed in 1784 under the title of La Vie privee du roi de Prusse. The book's scandalous revelations guaranteed that it was promptly banned by the authorities in France following a formal complaint by the Prussian Minister Goltz. The Memoires remained outside the Voltairean canon until Beaumarchais brought out the last (and seventieth) volume of the Kehl edition of Voltaire's Oeuvres in 1789, after the King of Prussia's death.
 "Voltaire's Satire on Frederick the Great: Candide, His Pothumous Memoires, Scarmendado, And Les Questions Sur L'encyclopedie." by Romance Notes " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}