Candide

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Voltaire, the author of Candide, is regarded today as one of the most famous figures of the European Enlightenment. What was the Enlightenment? Consider what you know about the philosophy, literature, and history of this period. What are some of the main ideas you associate with the Enlightenment?

Teaching Suggestion: The Enlightenment refers to an intellectual movement in Europe during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Introduce the class to the main preoccupations of the Enlightenment (e.g., reason and science, human happiness, liberty, progress, etc.) as well as to some of the leading Enlightenment figures (e.g., John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and, of course, Voltaire).

• This short video from Crash Course provides a student-facing overview of the key characteristics of the Enlightenment.
• This article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, though accessible, provides a thorough, instructor-facing overview of the Enlightenment

2. Candide is usually classified as a work of satire. What is satire? What are the basic characteristics of satire? Are there different types of satire? Do you associate satire with any particular historical periods or literary genres?