Saturday, January 25, 2020
The Confused Males of Montesquieuââ¬â¢s Persian Letters, Voltaireââ¬â¢s Candide
The Confused Males of Montesquieuââ¬â¢s Persian Letters, Voltaireââ¬â¢s Candide, Swiftââ¬â¢s Gulliverââ¬â¢s Travels, Sterneââ¬â¢s Tristram Shandy, and Rousseauââ¬â¢s First and Second Discourses ââ¬Å"Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke silence.ââ¬â ââ¬âMy brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.â⬠ââ¬âThen he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.â⬠(Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy) The eighteenth century, what a magnificent timeââ¬âa contemporary critic is likely to exclaim, and indeed it was. The century of Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Kant, Swift, Sterne, and others, whose names still make pound the sensitive hearts of many students of history, philosophy, and literature. The Age of Enlightenment, when every aspect of manââ¬â¢s lifeââ¬âmorals and vices; natural and conventional laws; issues of government and religion, of marriage and child rearing, of politics and economy, of the sciences and the artsââ¬âwas scrutinized under the critical eye of thinkers and often discarded without pity. A time of blossoming critical and literary thought, a time of great intellectual challenges, trials, and successesââ¬âin a word, a splendid, magnificent, glorious time. And what books were written, what literary marvels were produced! Montesquieuââ¬â¢s Persian Letters, Voltaireââ¬â¢s Candide, Swiftââ¬â¢s Gulliverââ¬â¢s Travels, Sterneââ¬â¢s Tristram Shandy, Rousseauââ¬â¢s First and Second Discourses . . . Innovative and daring, they questioned a traditional, God-blessed and Church-sponsored view of manââ¬â¢s life, providing armies of scholars with an enormous literary and philosophical heri... ...al pursuits with more earthly matters. To the modern reader, unfortunately, they may appear too ââ¬Å"enlightened.â⬠Notes 1If my reader wonders why I am taking so great an interest in this matter, I would like to point out that his or her (especially her) speculations are totally erroneous and irrelevant to the subject. 2Note that Uzbek is a Persian, and Candide is a German. Apparently when French writers create a hero with ââ¬Å"limitedâ⬠sexual prowess, they donââ¬â¢t assign him a French origin, probably preserving the myth of French sexual vigor. Works Cited Montesquieu, de [Baron de La Brà ©de, Charles de Secondat]. Persian Letters. New York: Penguin, 1973. Sterne, Laurence. Tristram Shandy. New York: Norton, 1980. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliverââ¬â¢s Travels. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988. Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet]. Candide. New York: Bantam, 1959.
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