Candide ou l’optimisme was published in 1759. This short philosophical tale tells the adventures of Candide, a naive and endearing character, who must leave his native Westphalia for adventures that lead him to the Americas. We find all the themes dear to the Enlightenment: religion and fanaticism, political freedom and tyranny, knowledge and obscurantism, happiness and fatality, freedom and slavery. However, the ultimate quest is, for Voltaire, the joy of the here and now, a difficult and perilous search for happiness summed up in the last -and famous- sentence of the novel: "one must cultivate one’s garden."

Voltaire is probably the most famous French thinker of the 18th century. Celebrated during his lifetime as the philosopher of free thought in the fight against obscurantism and bigotry, his books have crossed the centuries and have become, since the author's lifetime, classics of French literature. This course will allow you to discover one of the greatest French thinkers and writers in an annotated and easy-to-read edition.

We read this book in the spring of 2022.