Voltaire

Voltaire research papers assert that Voltaire can perhaps be considered to be the greatest of the philosophers.Have research on Voltaire teach you his philosophies, his place in world history and how his writings influenced many.

Even as a child, François-Marie Arouet (b. 1694) found himself immersed in a world of free thinkers. When he was twelve, he so impressed the aged courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos that she bequeathed him two thousand francs in order to buy books. A year or two later, his godfather, the Abbe de Châteauneuf, introduced the lad to the Society of the Temple, a group of libertines and freethinkers. Arouet soon found himself established in this group as a known wit. Arouet's early writing career included banishment from Paris in 1715 when he circulated a poem suggesting that the Regent of France (governing for the five year old Louis XV) was committing incest with his daughter. Shortly after this episode, he adopted the pen name Voltaire.

To formulate an interesting research paper, answer the following questions:

• Was Catherine the Great truly an “enlightened” monarch?
• What is the significance of her relationship with Voltaire?
• How did her early studies prepare her for ruling Russia?
• In what way did her reforms have a fundamental, lasting impact on Russia?

Please illustrate your points with examples from John Alexander's text, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (1989).

Voltaire probably became a deist in the 1720s, before the Contra Pascal was written, but it was not until he was "old, rich, famous and relatively safe from prosecution" that he began pouring out anti-Christianity attacks such as the Philosophical Dictionary, first published anonymously in 1764. "Theology amuses me," Voltaire wrote at the time. "There we find man's insanity in all its plenitude".

The end of Candide (1754) demonstrates Voltaire's deep pessimism about society. Candide and his companions settle into farming. Dr. Pangloss, the philosopher, reminds Candide that man must work. But it is Martin who remarks: "Let us work without reasoningit is the only way to make life endurable". The fair Cunegonde isn't so fair at the end of Candide. Why? Is Voltaire's purpose in writing not served by leaving her beautiful? Explain why it wouldn't be, based on Voltaire's beliefs and the themes of the novel.