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Candide
( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The Optimist'' (1762); and ''Candide: Optimism'' (1947). A young man, Candide, lives a sheltered life in an Garden of Eden, Edenic paradise, being indoctrinated with Gottfried Leibniz#Theodicy and optimism, Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. This lifestyle is abruptly ended, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes ''Candide'' with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds". ''Candide'' is characterized by its tone as well as its erratic, fantastical, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially Criticism of the Catholic Church, of the Roman Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including Stageplay, plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and even scientific Exposition (narrative), expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics. Leibniz has been called the "last universal genius" due to his vast expertise across fields, which became a rarity after his lifetime with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the spread of specialized labor. He is a prominent figure in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history, philology, games, music, and other studies. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. Leibniz contributed to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics. Leibniz has been called the "last universal genius" due to his vast expertise across fields, which became a rarity after his lifetime with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the spread of specialized labor. He is a prominent figure in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history, philology, games, music, and other studies. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. Leibniz contributed to the field ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1755 Lisbon Earthquake
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, All Saints' Day, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In combination with subsequent fires and a tsunami, the earthquake almost completely destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas. Seismologists estimate the Lisbon earthquake had a magnitude of 7.7 or greater on the moment magnitude scale, with its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean about west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent, a cape in Algarve region, and about southwest of Lisbon. Chronologically, it was the third known large-scale earthquake to hit the city (following those of 1332 and 1531 Lisbon earthquake, 1531). Estimates place the death toll in Lisbon around 30,000–40,000. A further 10,000 may have died in Morocco. The earthquake accentuated political tensions in Portugal and profoundly disrupted the Portuguese Empire. The event was widely di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia versus Kingdom of France, France and Habsburg monarchy, Austria, the respective coalitions receiving by countries including Portuguese Empire, Portugal, Spanish Empire, Spain, Electorate of Saxony, Saxony, Age of Liberty, Sweden, and Russian Empire, Russia. Related conflicts include the Third Silesian War, French and Indian War, Carnatic wars, Third Carnatic War, Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), and Spanish–Portuguese War (1762–1763), Spanish–Portuguese War. Although the War of the Austrian Succession ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), none of the signatories were happy with the terms, and it was generally viewed as a temporary armistice. It led to a strategic realignment kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a bildungsroman () is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age). The term comes from the German words ('formation' or 'education') and ('novel'). Origin The term was coined in 1819 by Philology, philologist Karl Morgenstern, Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905. The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term ''coming-of-age novel'' is sometimes used interchangeably with bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical. The birth of the bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1795–96, or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's of 1767.Swales, Martin. ''The German Bildungsroman from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Problem Of Evil
The problem of evil is the philosophical question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an Omnipotence, omnipotent, Omnibenevolence, omnibenevolent, and Omniscience, omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,, Nick Trakakis There are currently differing definitions of these concepts. The best known presentation of the problem is attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurean paradox, Epicurus. Besides the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is also important to the fields of theology and ethics. There are also many discussions of evil and associated problems in other philosophical fields, such as secular ethics and evolutionary ethics. But as usually understood, the problem of evil is posed in a theological context. Religious responses to the problem of evil, Responses to the problem of evil have traditionally been in three types: refutations, defenses, and Theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Literature
French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in the French language by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature. For centuries, French literature has been an object of national pride for French people, and it has been one of the most influential aspects of the literature of Europe. France ranks first on the list of Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prizes in literature by country. One of the first known examples of French literature is the The Song of Roland, Song of Roland, the first major work in a series of poems known as, "Chanson de geste, chansons de geste". The French language is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Best Of All Possible Worlds
The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" (; ) was coined by the German polymath and Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work '' Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal'' (''Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil''), more commonly known simply as the ''Theodicy''. The claim that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds is the central argument in Leibniz's theodicy, or his attempt to solve the problem of evil. Leibniz In Leibniz's works, the argument about the best of all possible worlds appears in the context of his '' theodicy'', a word that he coined by combining the Greek words ''Theos'', 'God', and ''dikē'', 'justice'. Its object was to solve the problem of evil, that is, to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering in the world with the existence of a perfectly good, all-powerful and all-knowing God, who would seem required to prevent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picaresque Novel
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for ' rogue' or 'rascal') is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but appealing hero, usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels typically adopt the form of "an episodic prose narrative" with a realistic style. There are often some elements of comedy and satire. The picaresque genre began with the Spanish novel '' Lazarillo de Tormes'' (1554), which was published anonymously during the Spanish Golden Age because of its anticlerical content. Literary works from Imperial Rome published during the 1st–2nd century AD, such as '' Satyricon'' by Petronius and ''The Golden Ass'' by Apuleius had a relevant influence on the picaresque genre and are considered predecessors. Other notable early Spanish contributors to the genre included Mateo Alemán's '' Guzmán de Alfarache'' (1599–1604) and Francisco de Quevedo's '' El Buscón'' (16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
