In what senses can we call EITHER Les Liaisons dangereuses OR Candide a masterpiece?

Candide by Voltaire is set in and around Europe and the Americas in the mid-18^th century. It   is a novel of satire, irony, sarcasm and hyperbole. Voltaire’s sentences are brief and sharp with a narrative that moves with lightning speed. His style in the novel though, does become tedious and burdensome at times. The novel Candide serves as a window to a past – Greco-Roman. This Greco-Roman period has given us so many great works that have survived the test of time. For instance we have all around the world, sculptures depicting human form such as the Roman disc thrower or the powerful winged goddesses like Nike of Samothrace which we consider as Masterpieces. These are vivid examples of the importance of beauty, strength, movement and athletic ability played by classical times. It is not always necessary to know who the masters were as their mastery communicates universal values that have not faded with passage of time. But a question springs to mind; is all that we encounter and that stays with us for the rest of our lives, Masterpieces?    

Aptly put, a Masterpiece is the work of an artist who has been absorbed by the spirit of his/her times and can transform a personal experience into a universal one. However, it is often easy to forget the artists and most likely to direct our attention to their works. A particular work can get us transposed although we wonder how, about its execution in the aftermath. A Masterpiece is an art sometimes deeply brought into creation, that our consciousness is actually expanded. However, there are some differentiating criteria on the exact elements involved in selecting a Masterpiece. Most Masterpieces would share lots of common criteria like evoking feelings whether it is curiosity, disgust or awe. There is also style, the technique, harmony and a degree of balance imbued. It is also helpful when perspective and form are discussed but still, this would not fully describe that elusive element essential to any moving work. So do these factors then solely determine what is and what is not a Masterpiece?

Not limited obviously, to these aforementioned. So to fully appreciate Voltaires Candide, I must not delve into the storyline casually in order to catch a few bright ideas that will last forever, or rapidly try to make an outline of Voltaire’s magnificent thoughts. I will instead slowly; and sensing the multiple aspects of what he discusses, grasping as I go along, his thoughts in its rich and often complex continuity, appreciating the vivid, forceful manner in which despite the tides of the era, he managed to drive through perfectly his satire on the Enlightenment. He uses most of the seven most important factors like universal appeal, history, rarity, skill or quality of the protagonist, age, subject matter and lastly, the time and effort Voltaire put into Candide has to be commended. These factors when combined in various degrees of importance can indicate how a work of art becomes quantified. Eventually it is common to think historians, critics, dealers and collectors are mostly responsible in deciding what a Masterpiece is.

After Candide’s secretive publication, it became widely banned because it mostly contained a veil of naïveté with an undertone of religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility. It also parodies many adventures and romance clichés; the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Voltaire succeeds in inviting the reader to commune with his unique sensibility and take on death, sex, travel, friendship, but above all, Candide is a confirmation of the belief that the best place to learn the lessons of life is in the everyday as in the Leibnitzan mantra of Pangloss; “Tous est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes”. Finally, Candide is a conspicuous assault on Leibnitz and his theory of optimism. The conclusion of the novella, in which Candide finally dismisses his tutor’s optimism, leaves unresolved what philosophy the protagonist is to accept in its stead. This element of the novel has been written about voluminously, perhaps above all others. It concludes enigmatically and the analysis is contentious.  

The fact that Candide was published simultaneously in five different countries deliberately to overwhelm censors in 1759, has led some to describe this “subversive tale” a Masterpiece. It is not only for the fact of its simultaneous publication that one would say makes this novel a Masterpiece but the fact that this has continuously been interpreted in different languages and adapted into other forms of art. Candide a Masterpiece just like Les Liaisons Dangereuses has various styles and conventions which as aforementioned, has been very effective even with passage of time and the change in language. Voltaire just like Laclos used different literary techniques such as sarcasm, paradox and even imagery to assist in conveying the mockery of philosophical optimism. In Candide, an old Turk instructs Candide in the futility of needless philosophising by saying that “. . . le travail éloigne de nous trois grands maux: l’énnui, le bésoin et le vice.” In these, the character chosen by the author comes across as a reasonable person thereby not only making the author’s point of view, but making it stick. 

Many chapters in Candide, end with some sort of lead-in to the next chapter, giving it a certain feel similar to today’s television serials. Voltaire used this method in an exaggerated manner to effectively capture and keep the readers’ attention and make them want to read on to find out what happens. This gets in with the effort, energy and quality of the author to keep within the remits of the subject matter which should have a universal appeal. Voltaire’s stories were written in such a way that the main character and usually one or more companions would set out on a journey in life loaded with adventure. In Candide, Candide’s outlook of life’s journey is challenged; he is forced to become less optimistic about this world being the best of all possible worlds – “O Pangloss! S’écria Candide, Tu n’avais pas deviné cette abomination: c’en est fait, il faudra qu’a la fin je renounce a ton optimisme.” This renunciation of optimism is still prevalent today. Hence Voltaire’s style during the Enlightenment period just like writers before him has helped to effectively communicate a point to the modern-day reader. Times may have changed and the issues different but Candide still appeals like it did back in the 18^th century.

This therefore leads me into the realms of qualifying Candide a Masterpiece, as a rarity. Voltaire’s technique in Candide of taking actual people and events like the 1755 Lisbon earthquake or the Seven Years’ War, and weaving them into his work of fiction, was a mockery of his political and literary adversaries. With this technique, Voltaire would speak against people and practices in a way that was less confrontational than public renunciations, as well as state his opinion in a form whereby contradiction is retarded. Amidst all the seriousness in the storyline, Voltaire’s periodic use of the comic style of exaggeration also makes Candide a rarity. Voltaire’s Candide vigorously propagates an ideal of progress to which people of all nations have remained responsive. Again and again, we see in Candide how Voltaire returns to his chosen themes on the establishment of religious tolerance, growth of material prosperity, and respect for the rights of man by the abolition of torture and useless punishments. By such means in most of his works, Candide retains a leadership in his Masterpieces.

In Candide, Voltaire’s tour de force goes beyond most other famous satires. He satirizes the problem of the existence of evil in the world that has bothered man every since man dared to speculate about the nature of things. It is a historical context of a life for what comes through very strongly, is an inspiring sense of remarkable independence of thought and enduring relevance. It is treated in the literature of the West at least as early as the bible, which attributes evil to man’s disobedient nature. God limited his own interference in the world when he created man “sufficient to stand though free to fall” according to St Augustine. The Book of Job in the Bible centres more specifically on the problem of suffering. Its answer is essentially no answer except God’s overwhelming demonstration of power, which humbles Job into acceptance. Candide is an exemplary field of dispute between two nearly matched powers – light and darkness with Candide caught in the middle. Thus Candide which is a parody of the Theodicean theory by Leibnitz, in which apparent evil is compensated by some greater good which may not be evident in the short term to the limited human being, can be considered without apprehension, to be a Masterpiece.