Candide : Or Optimism

by Voltaire; Translated by Burton Raffel

• ISBN13: 9780300119879
• ISBN10: 0300119879
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-15
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this new translation of Voltaire'sCandide,distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the French novel's irreverent spirit and offers a vivid, contemporary version of the 250-year-old text. Raffel casts the novel in an English idiom that--had Voltaire been a twenty-first-century American--he might himself have employed. The translation is immediate and unencumbered, and for the first time makes Voltaire thesatirist awicked pleasure for English-speaking readers. Candide recountsthe fantastically improbable travels, adventures, and misfortunes of the young Candide, his beloved Cunegonde, and his devoutly optimistic tutor, Pangloss. Endowed at the start with good fortune and every prospect for happiness and success, the characters nevertheless encounter every conceivable misfortune. Voltaire's philosophical tale, in part an ironic attack on the optimistic thinking of such figures as G. W. Leibniz and Alexander Pope, has proved enormously influential over the years. In a general introduction to this volume, historian Johnson Kent Wright placesCandide inthe contexts of Voltaire's life and work and the Age of Enlightenment.

Author Biography

Burton Raffel is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities and professor of English emeritus, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His other translations from the French include Stendhal’s The Red and the Black and Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, winner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize, 1992. 

Table of Contents

Introduction	xiii
Johnson Kent Wright
Translator's Note	xxvii
How Candide was raised in a noble mansion, and how he was driven away	1	(3)
What happened to Candide among the Bulgars	4	(3)
How Candide saved himself from the Bulgars, and what became of him	7	(3)
How Candide met his old philosophy teacher, Doctor Pangloss, and what had happened to him	10	(4)
Tempest, shipwreck, earthquake, and what happened to Doctor Pangloss, Candide, and Jacques the Anabaptist	14	(4)
How they had a beautiful auto-da-fe in order to put an end to the earthquake, and how Candide was flogged	18	(2)
How an old woman took care of Candide and how he got back his beloved	20	(2)
Cunegonde's story	22	(4)
What happened to Cunegonde, to Candide, to the Grand Inquisitor, and to a Jew	26	(2)
In what difficulty Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman reached Cadiz, and how they boarded a ship	28	(3)
The old woman's story	31	(4)
More about the old woman's misfortunes	35	(5)
How Candide was forced to leave lovely Cunegonde and the old woman	40	(3)
How Candide and Cacambo were greeted by the Jesuits of Paraguay	43	(4)
How Candide killed his dear Cunegonde's brother	47	(3)
What happened to the two travelers with two girls, two monkeys, and the savages known as Oreillons	50	(5)
Arrival of Candide and his valet in the land of Eldorado, and what they saw there	55	(5)
What they saw in Eldorado	60	(7)
How they got to to Surinam, and how Candide came to know Martin	67	(7)
What happened at sea to Candide and Martin	74	(4)
Candide and Martin approach the French coast and argue	78	(2)
What happened to Candide and Martin in France	80	(14)
Candide and Martin reach the British coast, and what they see there	94	(2)
Paquette and Friar Giroflee	96	(6)
Visit to Lord Pococurante, a nobleman of Venice	102	(7)
A dinner that Candide and Martin shared with six foreigners, and who they were	109	(5)
Candide's journey to Constantinople	114	(5)
What happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, etc.	119	(4)
How Candide found Cunegonde and the old woman	123	(1)
Conclusion	124	(7)
Suggested Reading	131