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Voltaire: Voltaire'
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Voltaire is the assumed name of a singer and comic writer who has made his third album. Voltaire turns his attention to the subject of lost love. Musically he's a bit mellower than on his first record The Devil's Bris. The music retains its Celtic influences and odd old world charm though. Voltaire's voice has never sounded richer of more seductive. The album goes from the bitter "See You in Hell" to the sad "Where's the Girl". Then there's the funny swipe at the goth scene in the marvellous "The Vampire Club". A merry sea shanty in style with lines like "There was so much angst after the fight / Vlad and Akasha broke up that night". He ... covers Tori Amos and Björk in a very inspired fashion.
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Voltaire's official publishers were Gabriel and Philibert Cramer from Geneve. They operated from Stockholm to Naples, and from Venice to Lisbon and Paris, spreading the ideas of Enlightenment. As an essayist Voltaire defended freedom of speech and religious tolerance. In his DICTIONNAIRE PHILOSOPHIQUE (1764) he defined the ideal religion - it would teach very little dogma but much morality. Voltaire's thoughts were condemned in Paris, Geneva, and Amsterdam. For safety reasons Voltaire denied his authorship.
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What do Voltaire's examples of detestable fanaticism have in common? What is the remedy he suggests on p. 203? What does he dislike about the stories from the Old Testament to which he alludes? What does he say is the basic problem with people who appeal to a higher divine law when they behave violently? By the way, he is quite wrong in his description of Confucianism as being free from fanaticism; Buddhism comes closer. Although Confucianism is based on rational principles, Confucianists could be quite fanatical in their opposition to Buddhism.
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Voltaire first visited Berlin in 1743, and after Mme Du Châtelet's death he accepted Frederick II's invitation to live at his court. His relations with Frederick, a man whose unbending nature matched his own, were generally stormy. Voltaire's interference in the quarrel between Maupertuis and König led to renewed coldness on the part of Frederick, and in 1753 Voltaire hastily left Prussia. At a distance, the two men later became reconciled, and their correspondence was resumed. Unwelcome in France, Voltaire settled in Geneva, where he acquired the property "Les Délices" ; he ... acquired another house near Lausanne. The Genevese authorities soon objected to Voltaire's holding private theatrical performances at his home and still more to the article "Genève" written for Diderot's Encyclopédie, on Voltaire's instigation, by Alembert.
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Voltaire quickly chose literature as a career. He began moving in aristocratic circles and soon became known in Paris salons as a brilliant and sarcastic wit. A number of his writings, particularly a lampoon accusing the French regent Philippe II, duc d'Orléans of heinous crimes, resulted in his imprisonment in the Bastille. During his 11-month detention, Voltaire completed his first tragedy, Œdipe, which was based upon the Oedipus tyrannus of the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles, and commenced an epic poem on Henry IV of France. Œdipe was given its initial performance at the Théâtre-Français in 1718 and received with great enthusiasm. The work on Henry IV was printed anonymously in Geneva under the title of Poème de la ligue (Poem of the League, 1723).
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Voltaire, the pen name for Francois-Marie Arouet, was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Paris and wished to become a writer. His father... wanted him to study the law. After a scandal and a threat by his father to disinherit him, the young man acquiesced to his father's demands. Nonetheless, he continued in his writing. He used wit and satire in his oblique attacks on intolerance and fanaticism during the French Enlightenment.
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