Voltaire Pens Candide After Tsunami
A sneak preview - just a taste - of a post I'm working on about creativity after traumatic experiences, Creativity Rises From the Ashes. The message: Experience everything in your life, witness from the heart and it'll be fodder for self-expression and growth and poignantly reaching into other's hearts.
And I've asked my psychologist sister to gather some resources on post-traumatic growth - an emerging field in positive psychology focused on human resiliency and using life-altering experiences for good.
I haven't read Candide since I was in high school, but I remember it is a powerfully satirical witty creative work. Voltaire allowed a traumatic experience to penetrate him to the core and turned it into some of his most brilliant work.
The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 which killed 30,000 people [in six minutes] happened on All Saint's Day exactly when the churches were fullest with worshipers. [The earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent fires killed more than a third of Lisbon's pre-quake population of 275,000. - Wikipedia] After the French clergy explained the disaster as "a punishment for the sins of the people of Lisbon," a shocked and enraged Voltaire penned the classic Candide in a 3-day frenzy of passion. This satirical book is often credited with being the death knell of the medieval theology which had lingered into the 18th Century. - Pura Vida blog
Interestingly enough, candide means optimism in French.
Tasty appetizer; looking forward to the full-course post. I'm very interested in art born of catastrophe :-)
I didn't know that was the genesis of Candide. Funny how the nuns kept that part hidden.
Damn nuns...
Posted by: Colleen | Jan 06, 2005 at 08:10 PM
Yes, the Candide comparison is very apt. Several friends of mine have brought up Candide in the context of the tsunami and all the blogging going on -- I doubt any earthquake (which is what this tsunami really is) has triggered so much literary action since that Lisbon earthquake.
Evelyn, I'm really happy that you're safe and recovering from your injury. Take care!
Best,
Diego
Posted by: Diego | Jan 06, 2005 at 09:47 PM
My thoughts exactly. See blog here.
http://greattsunami2004.blogspot.com
ireallydidit@myway.com
That some great art / ideas/ thinking / spiritual yearnings / will come out of this tragedy, yes. Voltaire's Candide inspires me in high school, too.
Posted by: David Hume | Jan 10, 2005 at 05:20 AM
Candide, a satirical book, is often credited with being the death knell of the medieval theology which had lingered into the 18th Century. MAYBE THIS 2004 TSUNAMI will lead to books and ideas that will sound the death knell of postmodern JudeoChristianIslamic theology which leads nowhere and has led us into war, only. I hope a new religion is born out this tragedy. please!
Posted by: david hume | Jan 10, 2005 at 05:22 AM
In "Les Delices", November 24, 1755, Voltaire wrote:
"This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters in the best of all possible worlds -- where a 100,000 ants, our neighbors, are crushed in a second on our ant-heaps, half, dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath debris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all over Europe reduced to beggary, and the fortunes of a hundred merchants -- Swiss, likeyourself -- swallowed up in the ruins of Lisbon. What a game of chance human life is! What will the preachers say -- especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! I flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like other people. That ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. I believe it is our mountains which save us from earthquakes."
Les Délices, UPDATED, December 26, 2004 [THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS 2004]
"This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of plate techtonics movementoperate in such fearful seismic disasters in the best of all possible worlds -- where over 200,000 ants, our global neighbors in south Asia, are crushed in a second on our ant-heaps, half, dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath debris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all over Asia reduced to beggary in the ruins of the Great Asian Tsunami of 2004. What a game of chance human life is! For, while nations fight nations in terrible wars, the Earth, our Earth, opens and the seas swell and swallow up all alike."
What Voltaire experienced in 1775, many people on Earth experienced in the aftermath of the Great Asian Tsunami of 2004. It will have a profound impact on human hope, yearning, philosophy and the understanding of the meaning of life.
Posted by: david hume | Jan 10, 2005 at 05:25 AM
Well done, David.
Evelyn, I am looking forward to your "Creativity Rises From the Ashes."
Posted by: Troy Worman | Jan 25, 2005 at 04:04 AM