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biography
| name: |
Voltaire
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pseudonym of François Marie Arouet
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pronunciation:
[voltair]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1694–1778)
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| biography:
| Writer, the embodiment of the 18th-c Enlightenment, born in Paris, France. Educated by the Jesuits in Paris, he studied law, then turned to writing. For lampooning the Duc d'Orléans he was imprisoned in the Bastille (1717–18), where he rewrote his tragedy Oedipe. This brought him fame, but he gained enemies at court, and was forced to go into exile in England (1726–9). Back in France, he wrote plays, poetry, historical and scientific treatises, and his Lettres philosophiques (1733, Philosophical Letters). He regained favour at court, becoming royal historiographer, then moved to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick the Great (1750–3). In 1755 he settled near Geneva, where he wrote the satirical short story, Candide (1759). From 1762 he produced a range of anti-religious writings and the Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). Always concerned over cases of injustice, he took a particular interest in the affair of Jean Calas, whose innocence he helped to establish. In 1778 he returned as a celebrity to Paris. His ideas were an important influence on the intellectual climate leading to the French Revolution. |
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