These questions are designed to prepare students for class discussion and for writing interpretive essays. Answers should be typed and should make use of parenthetical citation (name of the author/editor of the text followed by the page number). For instance: Voltaire challenges the idea that “private misfortunes are public benefits” (Lund 16). Guidelines for proper use of quotation and paraphrase are available in the Papers file on Blackboard. Questions must be submitted as a hard copy (or electronically) by the deadline, which is the beginning of class on the due date. They will not be accepted late. They will not be reviewed until a hard copy is submitted.
Satire is a literary genre that employs irony. It gained popularity in eighteenth-century Europe with the rise of the Enlightenment, a movement that emphasized humanity’s capacity for reason, scientific observation, and self-governance. Consider the following definitions:
SATIRE: A genre using derisive humor to mock human pretense and vice, or to censure social and political follies and incompetence (Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory. Second Edition. Eds. X. J. Kennedy, Dana Gioia, and Mark Bauerlein. NY: Pearson, 2009,138).
IRONY: A subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance…. At its simplest, in verbal irony, it involves a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant, as in its crude form, sarcasm…. The more sustained structural irony in literature involves the use of a naïve or deluded hero or unreliable narrator, whose view of the world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author and readers; literary irony thus flatters its readers’ intelligence at the expense of a character…. (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Ed. Chris Baldick. NY: Oxford UP, 2004, 130).
IRONY: As a gesture of language, irony is a statement whose intended meaning is the opposite of its literal meaning. As a quality of life, irony is a discrepancy between an expected outcome and a real outcome. In both cases, we need a context in which (or a distance from which) to recognize the meaning as ironic, not straightforward. Simplicity and sincerity provide earnest, literal expressions; irony requires duplicity and play…. Irony of a linguistic sort can be as simple as sarcasm (for example, the word sure pronounced with an exaggerated u so that it really means, “No way!”) or as complex as satire, in which characters are drawn with exact, but ludicrous detail so as to attack a specific person or group for its vices…. Their fundamental tactic is to employ verbal irony, whereby literal and intended meaning are opposed and the opposition implies criticism, a jab at someone’s pretense, stupidity, vanity, willfulness, and so on. To diminish someone, an ironist might praise him to the sky. Soon the audience recognizes a gross disparity between the praise and the person, and the irony does its work more effectively than would straightforward attack (Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory. Second Edition. Eds. X. J. Kennedy, Dana Gioia, and Mark Bauerlein. NY: Pearson, 2009,85-86).
1. (a) How can the reader tell that Voltaire’s Candide is satirical? Provide five quotations (with parenthetical page numbers) that illustrate irony—where the narrator or character states something, but the author wants the reader to conclude something else—and explain how the reader can tell that irony is intended.
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2. Discuss three targets of Voltaire’s satire and explain how he makes these targets seem ridiculous.
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3. Explain why Candide is, or is not, a romantic story.
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4. In Emile, Rousseau depicts women as the weaker sex. But in Voltaire’s Candide are characters such as Cunegonde and the Old Lady depicted as passive, submissive, and helpless? Are they more or less emotional, more or less rational, more or less pragmatic, more or less determined than the men around them? Make a claim about Voltaire’s representation of women (a) and back up this claim with three textual examples that are explained (b-d).
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5. (a) How does Voltaire depict the Americas? (b) How are the Native Americans and the Jesuits depicted? (c) How is slavery portrayed? (d) What is so special about El Dorado?
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6. Which Enlightenment values are defended by Voltaire? Discuss at least three.
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7. Is ours the best of all possible worlds according to Voltaire? Why or why not?
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