MASON - Voltaire's "Contes"- An "État Présent"

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Voltaire's "Contes": An "État Présent" Author(s): H. T. Mason Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 19-35Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722784Accessed: 14-06-2015 21:08 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 186.136.116.27 on Sun, 14 Jun 2015 21:08:40 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722784

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



VOLTAIRE'S 'CONTES': AN 'ETAT PRESENT'

Dr Schick's little book (i33)1 provides a good starting-point to this survey, for in its brief compass the author has made some useful contributions to our understanding of Voltaire's narrative techniques. In her investigation, she starts out by setting herself certain specific problems: How does Voltaire adapt a particular source for his purposes ? What do the variants in successive editions reveal ? Both these questions are discussed with reference to Zadig, the author concluding that Voltaire moves consistently towards greater cohesion and perceptiveness, making increasing demands upon the reader but at the same time compromising more and more with him; in other words, he aims to instruire and plaire, simultaneously and in ever heightened measure. We are then shown how, in Le Blanc et le noir, form depends upon the philosophical content; after which Dr Schick addresses herself to a careful study of structure and language in two widely different contes, Micro- megas and L'Ingenu. The conclusions are sound, if unremarkable. Voltaire emerges as a consciously literary figure, fully aware of the importance of style in furthering his didactic aims.

This is a neat and conscientious study, full of perceptive attention to detail- Voltaire's use of anticipatory and recapitulatory devices, the importance of the colon, the theatrical quality of some of his episodes. Micromegas stands revealed as truly an Histoire philosophique, sober, logical, didactic, cerebral, while L'Ingenu is more colourful and vital, more novelistic, the characters taking on psychological depth, as befits an Histoire veritable; the two tales, however, are very similar in the ironic manner they employ. Future critics will be unwise to overlook these searching analytical studies. The author seems to me, nonetheless, to run a double risk (of which, with her customary acumen, she is well aware): of saying the obvious, and of laying misplaced emphasis upon an isolated detail. I myself do not see any particular irony in 'une tante de quarante-cinq ans passes' (p. Ioo), and find it difficult to believe that Voltaire ever concerned himself with the inherent improba- bility of Le Blanc et le noir, to the point of clearing himself by adding a philosophical loophole (pp. 55-9). Such disagreements are however rare. By addressing herself to precise problems and eschewing vague generalities, she has illuminated our understanding of Voltaire's style. Her reading in Voltaire studies and in stylistic criticism (mainly German) is thorough, up-to-date, and lightly borne. One hopes that she will soon have more to add for our benefit in this field.

One other book merits separate discussion before we pass to the more general picture: Van den Heuvel's Voltaire dans ses contes (149), one of the most important works on Voltaire to appear in recent years, and deserving in itself of far more space than can be given it here. M. Van den Heuvel had already maintained some years ago that the Voltairean conte is a 'confidence deguisee' (I48), that 'Voltaire se retrouve toujours au present dans ses diff6rents contes' (p. I 20). Now he has set out to validate this claim. Though in one sense, says the author in

1 All numbers in parentheses other than page references relate to the Select Bibliography at the end of this article.



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'Etat Present'

this book, 'il n'existe rien de moins "voltairien" que les heros des contes de Voltaire' (p. 33I), Voltaire's preoccupations are always indirectly revealed in their fictional avatars - at least, up to L'Ingenu, after which 'se tait... cette voix originale' (p. 333). This is a book of great richness and diversity, the product of close study and imaginative insights, which everyone interested in the subject will surely read with profit. Time and again, the author strikes the right chord, as when he argues that Zadig 'resout le merveilleux en termes de clarte' (p. I94), or that Eldorado is a credible existence: 'L'Eldorado - ideal l'emporte peu a peu sur l'Eldorado -illusion' (p. 267). The discussion of Micromegas seems particularly valuable, the first criticism of that conte to add significantly to Wade's authoritative account (12). M. Van den Heuvel is equally impressive when he reconstructs the evolution of Voltaire's narrative achievements, showing how these talents were being developed through his early verse, comedy, history, and the Lettres philosophiques, to appear in the conte form in the late I730s. This makes the process a natural one, requiring no special explanation for the genesis of the conte as though it were a form apart. And the first conte philosophique, according to the author, is not Zadig, nor even Micromegas, but Songe de Platon, a hypothesis for which he advances plausible arguments. Quite apart from this historical evidence, on internal grounds it makes sense. Songe de Platon is very modest and tentative, 'une libre improvisation sur une lecture, quelques themes philosophiques jet6s 5A et la comme au hasard' (p. 62), yet it represents a frontier crossed. From it Voltaire can advance to Micromegas with the confidence acquired from this preparatory sketch.

All this is a masterly reappraisal of well-trodden ground. What is less successful is the insistence upon the biographical approach. Though often aware of the temptations it offers towards adopting simplistic conclusions (he criticizes Wade, for example, for doing so, p. 70, note) M. Van den Heuvel falls into the trap himself. With all its great merits, this work incurs the danger of being a biographie romancee. The author insists too much upon what he sees as sudden breaks and contrasts in Voltaire's life. We plunge from the optimism of Micromegas to the gloom of Le Monde comme il va, our spirits rise again with Zadig, descend with Candide, and eventually achieve serenity with L'Ingenu; it seems a seismic, not a biographical record. As Wade ( 2) says, in Micromegas Voltaire is 'amused, but not serene' (p. 113) for 'there runs throughout the story... a disturbing undertone' (p. I I4); the argument between Zadig and Jesrad is much more evenly balanced than the critic suggests, and besides he never considers the possibility, suggested by Greene (67), that Voltaire is playing down the pessimism because he is reading Zadig aloud in a salon; and one can only gasp at the tragic sensibility of L'Ingenu represented as the 'image d'un monde apaise' (p. 333). It is surprising that, when he has so convincingly sketched the gradual development of Voltaire's narrative art, the author prefers these brusque changes of outlook to the more stable delinea- tion along lines suggested by Sareil (I29) and Siegel (136). One surmises that the biographical outline becomes thereby more interesting, but it does so at the expense of reality, which is not so romantic. It is equally dangerous to fit the writing of, for example, Candide too closely to real events. M. Van den Heuvel proposes, without any supporting evidence, the hypothesis that it was written in three phases ('II y a un Candide d'hiver... un Candide d'ete ... enfin un Candide d'automne' p. 249) corresponding to differing moods, and he feels that he knows where the breaks occur. This sort of schematization, allied to a surprising amount of careless

20



H. T. MASON

detail, especially in the Bibliography,l and a lack of knowledge about relevant work of importance,2 makes this book less good than it might have been. It still remains one of the most valuable contributions yet to an understanding of the contes.

As the accompanying Bibliography shows, two important aspects of scholarship in this field immediately strike the eye. There has been a veritable explosion in the interest accorded to the Voltaire contes since I950, about three-quarters of the entries appearing after that date; and this interest is focussed particularly upon Candide, which nearly half the items take as their sole or main area of study upon Voltaire. The remark by Pomeau: 'De nouveau le vieil homme s'agite; de nouveau il inquiete (I I4, p. 184) is equally true when referring to the contes in particular. One of the main causes of this rebirth of interest may confidently be said to be Theodore Besterman. The Institut et Musee Voltaire in Geneva, which he founded, is generously available to all Voltaire scholars who wish to come and study, as numerous researchers, including the present writer, can warmly testify; his editions of Voltaire's Notebooks,3 Voltaire's love letters to Mme Denis,4 and above all the voluminous Correspondence5 have opened up a new dimension to Voltaire scholars; and the Studies on Voltaire, which he created, have provided a ready outlet for those scholars with contributions to make. If Voltaire is actuel, it is in large part because Dr Besterman has made him so.

No serious work on the contes can be attempted without established texts from which to work. Here too the last twenty years have been richly productive, with the usual emphasis upon Candide. Two new editions will shortly range themselves alongside the excellent contributions of Morize (2) and Pomeau (5), and the very serviceable, if more modest, productions of O. R. Taylor (3) and Crocker (4). Dr Brumfitt will publish an edition in the Clarendon French Series (6), where he will lay special stress upon the literary qualities of the conte rather than on sources and parallels, and will add, for good measure, the text of the Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne in an appendix.6 Dr Thacker's edition is due to appear in the Textes Litteraires Franfais series (7); he too will stress qualitative criticism, and also the contemporary reality of the background for Candide readers in I759.7 All this

activity has added immeasurably to our understanding of the conte, yet the simple matter of the original text continues to perplex us. During the I930s Havens (74) disposed of the old canard that the work was dashed off in three days, while Torrey (I46-7), Tannery (140), Vanderem (I50-3), and Meuron (98) attempted to elucidate the problem of the true first edition. In 1952, Gagnebin (62)

1 To take just some of the more important errors, D. M. McGhee is represented as the author of Simon Tyssot de Patot and the Seventeenth Century Background of Critical Deism, when it should be D. R. McKee; W. H. Barber's article on Micromegas (22) appears in duplicate; and an article by Wade (I59) is wrongly titled, while some of its detail is appended to one of his books (I62).

2 There is no reference to Rovillain (I25), Von der Miihll (I58), Weightman (I65), or Whitworth (I66).

3 2 vols, Geneva, 1952; republished in an enlarged edition as vols 81-2 of The Complete Works of Voltaire, edited by Theodore Besterman et al. (Geneva, I969).

4 Lettres d'amour de Voltaire d sa niece (Paris, 1957). 5 o07 vols, Geneva, 953-65; now being republished in a supplemented edition within The Complete

Works of Voltaire, ed. Besterman. Vols 85-7 have already appeared. 6 This edition has now appeared; it is an eminently successful synthesis of recent criticism of

Candide, with Dr Brumfitt's own views lucidly and sensibly argued; the Notes on points of detail are particularly rich and helpful.

7 This edition too has now seen the light, another excellent contribution to Candide scholarship, with an especially interesting critical study of the conte as a literary work.

21



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'Ettat Present'

produced a well-argued case for the Geneva edition of Cramer, Morize 59a, as being the original. At this stage, an important discovery was made by Wade at the Biblioth6que de l'Arsenal. The manuscript copy sent by Voltaire to the duchesse de La Valliere, the only pre-publication copy of Candide yet to have been discovered, was revealed as extant there, having somehow escaped the gaze of everyone, even of the indefatigable Morize. Professor Wade announced and discussed this finding in a series of articles (159-6I), and eventually drew upon it for an important new book on Candide (I64), which, on the bibliographical side, added useful information about variants to the work. Wade's deduction that the Morize 59x is the true first edition, published by Rey, probably in Amsterdam, has not however won wide assent. G. Barber argues that 59x was probably published by Jean Nourse in London (I8-20), and Flower (55) and Pomeau (i) generally agree; Candaux takes issue with Wade's view that Candide had appeared in Paris by 15 January I759, and inclines to place the appearance a month later (38); while Gagnebin has convincingly reasserted the case for 59a (63). The argument is of more than merely bibliographical consequence, for it throws light on the larger issue: was Candide the highly clandestine work that Wade claims, carefully planned by Voltaire to be simultaneously published in different centres, or are the many I759 editions due to the more banal clandestinity that accompanied piratical publication in the eighteenth century? This question itself relates to the whole attitude of Voltaire towards his contes. Did he regard them as pieces to be thrown off as mere divertissements, or, going to the other extreme, was he aware that he was creating a new form to cope with the breakdown of classical modes, which would couch the most original expression of his thoughts, as Wade (I2) and Bottiglia (32) claim ?

The answer to this question will vary with the individual critic; but what is increasingly clear is the degree to which Voltaire's contes are works of art of a highly sophisticated kind. L. Gossman was right in saying, as recently as 1963, that the tales 'are only now beginning to attract attention as literary works'.1 Despite Lanson's innovatory discussion of Voltaire's prose style over fifty years ago,2 critics have been slow to follow his lead. The old-fashioned approach is perfectly exemplified by Ascoli's edition of 'adig, which, excellent on the textual history, the sources, and the thought in the conte, accords one and a half pages to 'l'art du recit', and pours scorn on Price's clumsy but at least original attempts at symbolic analysis (I20). In fairness to Ascoli, he discussed 'l'art du conteur' in a series of Sorbonne lectures on Voltaire (I7), but it is only a sketchy account. When, therefore, Auerbach came to write Mimesis, there was little to deter him from his harsh appraisal of Voltaire as a 'nonchalant and superficial' artist, who 'falsifies reality by an extreme simplification of the causes of events'.3 The pioneering analyses of Flowers (56) and McGhee (92), painstaking and often useful though they are on particular details, are too narrow and mechanical to command a different view. Wade's thorough treatment of the style of Micromegas (I2) showed what could be done; Pomeau's discussion of Le Taureau blanc ( 3) is another case in point. At last stylistic and structural analysis of the contes has become respectable,

1 'Voltaire's Charles XII: History into Art', Studs. Volt., 25 (I963), 720. 2 L'Art de la prose (Paris, 191 ). 3 Princeton, 1953, pp. 4 I, 409.

22



H. T. MASON

a fit subject for doctoral dissertations. One such is being prepared by P. Mitchell (ioi), J. Harvie's thesis (73) sounds interesting, while K. Whitworth, as one would expect from a pupil of Professor Wade, investigates the style of two contes as a neces- sary process in establishing the meaning of these tales as a whole (I66). For this general evolution, Dr Sayce is one of those most eminently responsible: his book1 contains a valuable discussion of word order and sentence structure in Zadig. Technical matters have received close attention, like Voltaire's use of verb tenses as embodying, according to Grobe (69), a vision of the discontinuity of human experience, or the satirical employment he makes of causal clauses, which Haffter suggestively views as an attack by Voltaire upon 'la hierarchisation de la pensee' (72, p. 27). Starobinski has, characteristically, produced one of the most illuminat- ing contributions in this field, an elucidation of the binary structure in L'Ingenu (138); he claims that this 'legge della doppietta' corresponds to the Voltairean vision of the world - a valuable insight, to which I shall return later.

Vivienne Mylne concludes, after a careful analysis of such formal matters as plot-structure, narrative techniques and dialogue, that Voltaire, far from inventing the conte philosophique, merely borrowed already existing elements, although, she adds, he then proceeded to use them with greater skill and subtlety than his predecessors ( 05); this interesting article will surely inspire further discussion upon a matter vital for our assessment of the literary value of these tales. On a larger, more impressionistic canvas, Belaval has produced two valuable pieces, one on the conte philosophique which is a useful summation of its strengths and weaknesses, to be borne in mind when we evaluate it (25), the other on 'l'esprit de Voltaire' in which the contes necessarily have a large place (26). Like Van den Heuvel (148-9) and Pomeau (I 17), he is concerned with the presence of Voltaire in his tales; as he puts it epigrammatically: 'Je est un conte' (26, p. 147). These discussions often brush, when they do not openly tackle, the problem of determining how classical a writer Voltaire is in his contes. Is he, as Laufer would have us believe (81-2), a rococo writer ? A similar opinion has been expressed by Flowers (56) and, I gather, Spitzer (i37). I myself find this difficult to accept, and share, with Bottiglia (32) and others, Brady's view (33) that Voltaire is too rational, too well-organized, to be anything but truly classical.

When one turns from the form to the content in Voltaire's contes, one name especially stands out: Rene Pomeau, whose La Religion de Voltaire2 is as masterly here as it is for all of Voltaire's work in respect of this topic. Although Van den Heuvel (I49) has shown that Pomeau's remark: 'Le conte nait definitivement de la crise de 1748' (p. 243) is no longer strictly accurate, on much else the latter's authority is complete. Above all, he places the contes firmly in the context of Vol- taire's whole development, as they must be so placed when the philosophy they contain is being discussed. An article like Vignery's, for instance, discussing Vol- taire's economic ideas in the contes alone (157), seems to adopt a purely arbitrary delimitation. Second only to Pomeau in this domain is the relevant section of W. H. Barber's book on Leibniz in France;3 the chapter on 'Voltaire and Optimism' (pp. 2IO-43) is particularly helpful as background to Zadig and Candide, and

1 Style in French Prose (Oxford, I953). 2 Paris, 1956. 3 Oxford, 1955.

23



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'Ettat Present'

remains authoritative despite Brooks' later attempts in the same field (35). As an adjunct, I have attempted to portray the development of Voltaire's views on Manicheism (97), on which subject the contes occupy the larger part of one's attention. It is perhaps as well to repeat here the utility of articles by Sareil (I29) and Siegel (136), which help to destroy the traditional antithesis between the optimism of Zadig and the pessimism of Candide, overstressed by Ascoli (I4) and 'un lieu commun scolaire', as Fabre puts it, 'dont il faut se garder d'exagerer la portee' (ibid., ii, p. I96). In this respect, as I have indicated above, it seems to me that Van den Heuvel (I49) does not improve on his predecessors.

Since the contes do not provide a homogeneous whole on the philosophical level, it is hardly surprising that the tendency is much more common to discuss the meaning of individual tales. Here Candide is as usual well to the fore. At times one fears that this brilliant little story may founder under the weight of scholarship turned upon it. Happily, amidst the welter, made up of very uneven quality, there are several works that shed more light than weight. First come the invaluable editions of Morize (2) and Pomeau (5), and after them must be placed Bottiglia's analysis (32). In its revised version it is much improved, and, despite an unfor- tunate stridency of tone in the more controversial sections, it has become, to quote Pappas (who contributes an excellent review article of this work) 'un veritable manuel de ref'rence' (I II, p. 263), providing a full coverage of earlier interpretations as well as presenting the author's own, well-documented views. The stylistic analysis alone would ensure its lasting importance in Candide scholarship; but, more than that, it brings to every problem concerned with the meaning of Candide a thorough and detailed investigation. On Eldorado, Bottiglia persuades me completely that by its character and situation, it is intended to provide a model worthy of aspiration, not, as Kahn (78) and others have held, an ideal without reference to the human condition. I should have liked to know why, in the author's view, Voltaire totally excludes the impact of natural evils from Eldorado, thereby removing one element of realism; so far as I have noticed, only Weightman (I65) has ever discussed this curious omission. Nonetheless, Eldorado is not only realistic, it incorporates elements of reality, with references to Pennsylvania and the Incas, as W. H. Barber (2I) and Brooks (34) respectively demonstrate. But Bottiglia seems less successful in his interpretation of the final sentence of Candide, and through it of the whole tale. He turns Candide into an oversimple demonstration of meliorism, and insists, upon too little documentation, that his is the only acceptable thesis. Torrey's conclusions, supported by strong corroborative evidence from Voltaire's correspondence, are more judicious: if the story offers any grounds for hope at the end, that optimism is more implicit than explicit (I45). A work so full of horrors can hardly be turned into a happy ending by one short sentence, itself enigmatic as a statement and ambiguous in its context. What Bottiglia overlooks above all, I feel, is precisely the ambiguity of Candide. He has gone too far in attempting to resolve every tension. On the contrary, as Wade puts it: 'Whatever way we turn, Candide is two' (164, p. xiii), and Torrey (I45) echoes him. No one has to my mind expressed this paradox more forcefully than Weightman (I65), whose article is, despite one or two errors of detail, the best brief essay on Candide I know and one which deserves wider acquaintance by Voltaire scholars. Asking himself the reason for Candide's greatness, Weightman answers: 'In this one book, the horror of evil and an instinctive zest for life are almost equally matched, and

24



H. T. MASON

it is the contrast between them... which produces the unique tragi-comic vibra- tion' (p. 338). Voltaire is Pangloss as he is Candide; the story is a transposition of Voltaire's inner debate: 'an unappeasable sense of the mystery and horror of life is accompanied, at every step, by an instinctive animal resilience' (p. 340). 'Candide throbs from end to end with a paradoxical quality which might be described as a despairing hope or a relentless charity' (p. 346). One thinks of 'la doppietta di Voltaire'; in Starobinski's view, Voltaire's world is one where there is no evil without good, no good without evil. Neither absolute is definitive truth, and Voltaire's philosophic irony is perfectly attuned to this attitude (138). Though Starobinski is basing his conclusions upon L'Ingenu, he and Weightman seem to be talking about the same phenomenon.

These are the outstanding items in a crowded field; they are not the only ones of quality. W. H. Barber's little book (23) is an excellent brief survey, while Wade's much bigger one has valuable material on the philosophical background, the genesis, and the meaning of Candide, in addition to the important bibliographical documentation earlier mentioned (I64). By contrast, the books by Choptrayanov (46) and Sareil (I30) offer less interest. Source material for Candide never seems to be lacking: in addition to the items in Morize's elaborate compilation (2, pp. xlvii-

lxiii), Garcilaso de la Vega's Histoire des Tncas, according to Brooks (34), Fougeret de Monbron, well argued by Broome (36), Gracian's El Criticon, in McGhee's view (9I, 93), Aucassin et Nicolette for Owen (IIo) and the Emperor Julian for Thacker (I41); the evidence for the last three seems unpersuasive. Voltaire is rightly seen by several critics as his own source, and useful rapprochements are made: for example, with the Memoires de Voltaire by Wade (I64), with the article 'Genese' of the Dictionnaire philosophique by Cherchi (42), with Zadig parodied, by Van den Heuvel (I49). There are good background articles by Besterman (28) and Leigh (84), as well as Kendrick's fascinating book, The Lisbon Earthquake.1 Bertrand (27) and Sareil (128) study the theme of love in Candide, while Barber (21) and Rousseau (122) consider various aspects of England as it is presented. Ryding (I27) pushes too far an interesting parallel, in suggesting that Martin is Pierre Bayle and going on from there to the unacceptable thesis that the novel appears to be a study of events and persons as seen through Bayle's eyes. Mornet (I03), Mortier (104), and Thacker (142), the last in a particularly lively article, deal with various imitations of Candide.

Is Candide 'dans une classe a part', with all the other contes 'bien menus, bien minces', as Delattre maintains (5) ? Weightman for one agrees (I65). One contemporary of Voltaire, Irailh, took a different view, maintaining that Zadig, Memnon, and Babouc were 'bien superieurs a Candide',2 and one other eighteenth- century figure, Voltaire himself, placed on record the oft-quoted remark that 'L'Ingenu vaut mieux que Candide',3 an opinion which should not be held too seriously against him by posterity, as he had just published L'Ingenu at the time. An increasing number of modern scholars, without going as far as Irailh, seem to maintain that Candide is not qualitatively different, a unique freak, dissenting from Weightman's opinion that 'There is no progression up to Candide, nor any sign of

1 London, 1956. 2 Querelles litteraires, 4 vols (Paris, I76I). 3 Correspondence, ed. Besterman, 13360 [June/July I767].

25



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'E'tat Present'

further development afterwards' (p. 34I). To name no other, Van den Heuvel's whole thesis is intended to prove the contrary (I49).

When one turns to the other contes, it is apparent that about equal attention has been paid to Zadig and L'Ingenu, with Micromegas some way behind; beyond these threej the critical interest has been slight, although it includes some important work. Zadig, long since well represented by Ascoli's critical edition, to which Fabre has latterly added some useful revisions (14), has attracted the efforts of scholars mainly because of the enigma contained in Chapter xviii, 'L'Hermite'. Not only is its elucidation important for understanding the development of Voltaire's ideas on the problem of evil; it relates closely to the complex question of the writer's relationship with Leibniz in 1747. On this, as I have already indicated, W. H. Barber's Leibniz in France is authoritative, though Brooks (35), Haac (7 ),Wade (164, Chapter 3), and especially Van den Heuvel (I49) should also be consulted. The time has probably come for a thorough reassessment of Voltaire's relationship to Leibniz in the light of new evidence, especially in the Correspondence, as W. H. Barber suggests in a review of Brooks' work.l Pomeau (I) makes the interesting suggestion that the confusion is partly a literary defect of Voltaire's, the philosophic and the novelistic denouements coexisting rather than cohering. Siegel's contribution (I 36) should be mentioned under this heading, and also an interesting article by Rovillain (I24) on the stoicism of Voltaire's outlook here.

The dating of Zadig has likewise caused some discussion. Ascoli thinks that it was composed in early I747 (I4, p. vi), but Van den Heuvel argues that the conte 'porte vigoureusement l'empreinte de ces annees 1745 et 1746' (149, p. I42), while Whitworth (I66) goes even further back, and assigns composition to I744. One would like to see the case for this last thesis developed at greater length. Wade (I62) has provided us with the text of the Leningrad manuscript fragments - a copy by Longchamp of two chapters in an intermediary version between the 1747 and 1748 editions. Stylistically, Schick (I33) devotes more time to Zadig than to any other conte, and part of this treatment is also available in English (132), while Sayce (Style in French Prose) takes a passage from Zadig for detailed analysis. Price's work (I2o) is now little more than a curiosity, albeit an honourable one. Marsland (94) discusses an aspect of Voltaire's satire, but leaves me unpersuaded. Source scholarship has been active here too: Seele (1 34), Van Roosbroeck (I54-5), Rovillain (I25-6), Von der Miihll (I58),2 Cioranescu (47), and Foulet (59), who sees Zadig as a 'tongue-in-cheek rewriting of the book of Job' (p. 422). This last possibility, if not accredited too much importance as a single source among many, has something to recommend it, and should be considered in the light of Van den Heuvel's comments on the relationship between Voltaire and Job, with particular emphasis on Candide (149, pp. 259-60). Loss discusses a prototype of 'Le Chien et le cheval' (88), while Liechtenstein (86) and Meyerson (Ioo) are concerned with the names of characters. Guinard gives a curious account of a 'pesant recit didactique' (70, p. 495), a Spanish adaptation appearing in 1759 in Madrid, which he describes as a 'massacre litteraire' (p. 482) of Zadig. Greene's article (67) is a series of notations rather than a coherent unity, but has useful suggestions to offer.

1 French Studies, 20 (1966), 9-1-2. 2 Van den Heuvel should have been aware of this when discussing the relevant episode (p. 151);

it is reported by Fabre (14, II, 190).

26



H. T. MASON

Finally, one should not omit to mention Saulnier's very serviceable edition (I5), which stresses the political and satirical side of Zadig.

On L'Ingenu, the main problems have been its meaning and its structure. I have referred elsewhere to the contributions of Laufer (82), Nivat (o09), and Pruner (I21), while myself attempting to discover, contrary to most critics, an internal unity in the work (95), and shall not repeat those comments here. Alongside my article appears a well-argued, well-documented one by S. Taylor on a somewhat different aspect of L'Ingenu (I 39), which demonstrates the strong connexion between the work and Protestantism and the relevance of the tale to Voltaire's views about the freedom of the individual in an absolutist state; he does not share my view that the work is satisfactorily unified. Wade (162) and Pomeau (116) print the first draft outline, recently discovered in the Leningrad manuscript papers of Voltaire. Wade (163) gives Mandeville pride of place in the genesis of L'Ingenu, while Meyer (99) thinks La Hontan's Voyages an important source. Van den Heuvel (I49) considers that Mercier's L'Homme sauvage provides 'des analogies assez

surprenantes' (p. 299), but S. Taylor sees no useful link between the two works (I39, p. III);1 other possible sources are noted by Chinard (45) and Rovillain (I23). Despite the many solid pieces of scholarship upon the historical background of the tale, a certain mystery remains; the latest such enterprise, by S. Taylor, admits that some of the evidence is circumstantial and many of the conclusions tentative. Nonetheless, his essay remains the most thorough and satisfactory at the present time. Van den Heuvel (I49) is disappointing on L'Ingenu; the study is rather superficial, the conclusions temporizing. The conte has been well served in editions, the most scholarly being Brumfitt and Davis (io), although Jones (8) and Varloot (9) are still useful. Finally, mention must again be made of Staro- binski's excellent essay in structural analysis (i38).

Wade's edition of Micromegas (I2) has until recently been almost the only penetrating study we possessed of that conte, for almost every aspect: background, composition, style, meaning. W. H. Barber (22) took Wade to task over the new dating of 1739 the latter suggested, but scholarly opinion has generally accorded Wade the better of the argument, and Van den Heuvel's thorough investigation serves only to confirm Wade's theories even more strongly (I49, pp. 76-8, note). It would seem that Nedergaard-Hansen (Io8) was arriving at the same position as Wade independently at the same time, to judge by the date of composition given; but by the time his articles were published, Wade's edition had long since appeared. Wade's conclusions performed a notable service, not only for Micromegas, but for the criticism of Voltaire's contes in general. It had never been easy to see how Zadig should precede Micromegas, so different in manner, form, and outlook, whereas the reversal gave the reader a clear line of development. Fontius (57) has recently provided new information on the publication of Micromegas in 1752. Otherwise, scholarship has been limited to the peripheral or the fragmentary: an unconvincing link by Engstrom with Lucretius (52), a note by Cherpack on 'proportion' (43), and an article by Gobert on the comic in Micromegas (66); both the latter merely supplement Wade. Kahane's contribution is belletristic and insubstantial (77). Tribute should be paid however, to the solid fare provided

1 It would appear that Dr Taylor has the stronger case; on 24 June 1767 Voltaire has apparently not seen the work (Besterman 13341), and by then L'Ingenu is almost certainly completed.

27



28 Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'Stat Prdsent'

by Castex (4I), on this conte as well as on Candide and L'Inge'nu; while Topazio also makes a brief and, within its limitations of space, useful critical study of Microme'gas and the other three major contes (144, pp. 27-60).

The rest of the contes between them contribute little, though that little includes good editions ofLe Taureau blanc by Pomeau ( 3) and of Histoire dejenni by Brumfitt and Davis (Io); another critical edition of the latter, prepared as a dissertation by Najem ( o6), has so far as I am aware never appeared in print, but Cherpack has some useful things to say on Voltaire's ideas in the tale (44). Other substantial work on the minor contes embraces an edition of Les Lettres d'Amabed by Jovicevich ( I) and a conscientious study by Kotta of the themes in L'Homme aux quarante ecus (80). Ginsberg views the latter tale not as 'a literary work, a philosophical work, or a rhetorical work' (64, p. 620), but as 'a work of philosophical rhetoric in which literary techniques are employed to persuade a universal audience to adopt a certain philosophy and practical outlook on life' (p. 622). I have undertaken a study of Le Taureau blanc in a recent article (97 bis). Fields discusses the curious case of a Voltaire conte, La Princesse de Babylone, appearing for the first time in France in the Mercure de France, 'dans des pages officielles, sans intervention ni sanction du gouvernement' (54, p. I82). Schick devotes a few pages of her stylistic analysis to Le Blanc et le noir (I33, pp. 55-9), which tale plays an important part in my discussion of Voltaire's Manichean views (97). Whitworth has some interesting points to make on Le Crocheteur borgne (166), and Van den Heuvel (149) on Le Monde comme il va (pp. I21-39), Memnon (pp. 203-I6), and the Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado (pp. 2I7-35). There are also useful brief introductions to these minor stories by Pomeau (i); a probable dating to 1753-4 of Scarmentado by Nedergaard- Hansen (Io7); a note by Crowley on the title of Le Taureau blanc (50); Jovicevich's suggestion that Les Lettres d'Amabed are the final version of an earlier epistolary novel (75), and bibliographical note about editions, translations, and imitations of L'Homme aux quarante e'cus (76); source attributions for La Princesse de Babylone by Cioranescu (47), who draws on Legros (83); and Voltaire's views on England in this last conte, as seen by Liljegren (87); the rest is silence.

What remains to be done? Quite a good deal. In I955, Pomeau wrote: 'il resterait encore a etablir le texte du Monde comme il va, de l'Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado, de Jeannot et Colin, de La Princesse de Babylone, peut-etre de L'Homme aux quarante ecus' (II4, p. 186). To the best of my knowledge, not a word of that statement requires alteration today. As we have seen, little enough has been written on most of the contes, nothing of consequence, for instance, on Le Monde comme il va until Van den Heuvel; yet this last tale is central to an understanding of Voltaire. As Cassirer put it: Auch das moralische Ubel ist unleugbar; aber seine Rechtfertigung besteht darin, dass es bei der einmal gegebenen Natur des Menschen unvermeidlich ist. Denn ohne die men- schlichen Schwichen wire unser Leben zum Stillstand verurteilt - da eben die starksten Impulse dieses Lebens aus unseren Trieben und Leidenschaften, also, ethisch gesehen, aus unsern Mangeln entstehen. Den pragnantesten Ausdruck hat Voltaire fur diese seine Welt - und Lebensansicht in der philosophischen Erzahlung: 'Le Monde comme il va'. (39, pp. I96-7)

I have collated the texts of this conte with a view to a future critical edition. Further- more, I shall shortly complete an edition scolaire containing Zadig, Microme'gas, Le Monde comme il va, Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado, Songe de Platon, Le Blanc



H. T. MASON

et le noir, Histoire d'un bon bramin, and Le Taureau blanc ( 6). Even where sterling work has been done on the texts, the last word has not been spoken. As Fabre points out, the textual history of Zadig needs to be rewritten, in the light of new discoveries (I4, I, I 9-20); and one would hesitate to call the bibliographical problems of Candide an affaire classee. Pomeau ( 4) pointed out the value of Besterman's edition of the Correspondence for further research, and invoked its aid in an exemplary manner for his edition of Candide (5, pp. 7-46).

There is surely much still to be unearthed from attentive reading of Voltaire's letters that will have a bearing on the contes, particularly perhaps upon the secrets of their genesis. Another rich source of future information for which we must patiently bide our time lies in the revelations by Russian scholars of the notes in Voltaire's library at Leningrad (see Lublinsky, 89). The final store of wealth resides in yet another side of Voltaire himself, his other literary works. In the past these have been called on often enough when the thought in the contes was under discussion, but less frequently when other aspects were being considered. Not the least of Van den Heuvel's merits (I49) is the way he thinks not only of the tales but also of poems, the Lettres philosophiques, even drama, when talking about the narra- tor Voltaire. I feel that the links between the tragedies and the contes have not yet been sufficiently explored; on the one side, works in the most respectable of genres, to whose success Voltaire attached great importance; on the other, informal tales where, whatever Voltaire's own intimate attitude to them, he could not fail to

recognize his own talent and the reverberations it set up. My own article on

L'Ingenu (95) included an attempt to compare the impact of Voltaire's drama

upon his narrative work in one particular context. According to Vivienne Mylne, 'Not enough attention has been paid... to the

possible connections between Voltaire's contes and the dialogues' (105, p. I077). This is a valuable suggestion; the conte is always in danger of incursion from the

dialogue from Micromegas onwards, even though the dialogue element is muted in the more purely narrative contes. Ideas grow and develop out of the mouths of wise men, like Zadig demonstrating the wisdom of deist truths to Setoc, or using the contradictions professed by men of different creeds to show that they are all funda- mentally in agreement. These conversations are at a far remove from realistic conversation; stylized and abridged, they penetrate to the basic issues and dis-

sensions, they are philosophically 'vraisemblable'. No sooner do two people begin to talk together than the reality of their different world-views starts to emerge. This is one of the main reasons for the condensed brevity of the Voltaire conte. Generally one character has truth on his side, and often this leads to a master-pupil rela-

tionship. Sometimes the pupil is receptive and easily converted, like Gordon in L'Ingenu, while others such as Pangloss are beyond remedy. But the dialogue technique allows of many approaches. The truth may be seen only by the outside observer, emerging from the irony underlying the dialogue: Des que la princesse fut arrivee toute tremblante au camp du roi son pere, il lui dit: ma fille, vous savez qu'on fait mourir toutes les princesses qui desobeissent aux rois leurs peres, sans quoi un royaume ne pourrait etre bien gouverne. Je vous avais defendu de proferer le nom de votre amant Nabucodonosor, mon ennemi mortel, qui m'avait detr6on il y a bient6t sept ans, & qui a disparu de la terre. Vous avez choisi a sa place un taureau blanc, & vous avez crie Nabucodonosor. II est juste que je vous coupe le cou.

La princesse lui repondit: Mon pere, soit fait selon votre volonte, mais donnez-moi du temps pour pleurer ma virginite. - Cela est juste, dit le roi Amasis, c'est une loi etablie chez tous

29



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'E]tat Present'

les princes eclaires & prudens. Je vous donne toute la journ6e pour pleurer votre virginite, puisque vous dites que vous l'avez. Demain, qui est le huitieme jour de mon campement, je ferai avaler le taureau blanc par le poisson, & je vous couperai le cou a neuf heures du matin. (I3, pp. 58-9)

The King's complacent use of his prerogatives, his odious regard for punctilio in minor conventions, allied to his total disregard for the life of his daughter, all these qualities are highlighted by her piteous innocence and her imminent end, though she makes no move at all to revolt as a philosophe, and is ready to die as a prisoner of the tyrannical society which surrounds her. Nothing could be farther from the naturalistic conversation of a father and daughter such as Sedaine had been portraying on the stage in Le Philosophe sans le savoir only a few years previously. But these are fragmentary suggestions only; Voltaire's use of dialogue in his narrative and philosophical works needs to be looked at more comprehensively and systematically.

Stylistic analysis of the tales, as we have seen, is barely out of its infancy, and here the field is wide open. Dr Schick's sensible decision to use sources (132; 133, pp. I6-24) and variants (I33, pp. 25-54), in order to uncover the way the writer's narrative technique works, offers wide possibilities of application. Technical matters like the deliberate change of tempo (see I 33, p. 20, note) require treatment. For all the times the phrase 'Voltairean irony' comes to the lips or pen, we know surprisingly little of its modes of operation, how it is modified from one conte to another, or simply, on occasion, dropped almost completely. All this must however find a framework in the general study of the conte philosophique which we so badly lack. We know little enough of its history or of its aesthetic potentialities; Belaval has placed us in his debt by showing us the way with the latter (25). And our knowledge of the reception obtained amongst contemporaries by the contes of Voltaire or of anyone else is still vague and unco-ordinated.

Has the conte philosophique any lineage of descent reaching to the present day? Leo sees it as providing roots for the nineteenth-century realistic novel, though he does not argue the point (85); McGhee shows its evolution qua conte philosophique until about I825 (90); Pommier detects an influence of Voltaire upon Chateau- briand ( 118), and Cassirer one upon Schopenhauer (39, p. I95). But what of our own day? There seems some reason for believing that after the great social novels of the last century, literature in the service of ideas is coming into its own again; and what are Voltaire's contes but the literature of ideas in its perhaps purest form? For Belaval, 'l'argument sera remplac6 par l'exemple' (25, p. 3I0), 'Les idees deviennent images' (26, p. I45); it sounds like the phenomenological literature of the Existentialists. Inspired by Sartre's famous analogy between Camus's L'Etranger and a Voltairean conte, I have myself tried to sketch out the possible filiations between the two writers (96). The whole question of Voltaire's value for twentieth- century novelists is surely worth further discussion and exploration.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it seems to me that one can at least use the lessons learned from our contemporaries in re-examining Voltaire's narrative talent. Belaval says rightly of Voltaire: 'l'esprit de cet esprit n'est pas le desinteres- sement, l'art pour l'art .. il est recherche de l'action utile' (26, p. I50). Greene (67) echoes this when he suggests that the right critical approach to Voltaire's contes is to apply to them the concept of litterature engagee. I would agree. Voltaire may well have had posterity in mind when composing his tragedies, but in his tales

30



H. T. MASON 31

he is, like Sartre, writing for his own age. The major contes, at least, are all written to serve a precise aim, and each relates to a specific personal and philosophical climate. Micromegas, an intelligent empiricist, reflects Voltaire's hopes for scien- tific progress; so does Zadig, who furthermore knows how to put his observations to good practical effect in life on this planet. But Zadig has other graver problems, incarnating Voltaire's ebbing confidence in Leibnizian Optimism, which will receive the coup de grdce in Candide. This pattern could be developed at length and with more precision and subtlety, but it is enough to indicate Voltaire's commit- ment to the causes of this world, social, political, economic, philosophic. Even a work of fantasy like Le Taureau blanc, less obviously didactic than most, never loses sight of its main aim, to destroy by ridicule our belief in the customs and super- stitions that pervade the world of the Old Testament:

Je veux qu'un conte soit fond6 sur la vraisemblance, & qu'il ne ressemble pas toujours a un reve. Je d6sire qu'il n'ait rien de trivial ni d'extravagant. Je voudrais surtout que, sous le voile de la fable, il laissat entrevoir aux yeux exerc6s quelque verite fine qui 6chappe au vulgaire.

Thus speaks Amaside (I3, pp. 5I-2); and Voltaire speaks with her. The best future criticism of the tales will surely be that where one remembers both Voltaire's art and his thought. For Voltaire did not dash off these stories careless of technique while thinking only of Leibniz, or freewill, or the Lisbon earthquake; nor did he ever labour at a phrase forgetful of the ultimate purpose. He was a philosophe, but a narrative artist too. H. T. MASON

H. T. MASON NORWICH

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

AE The Age of the Enlightenment: Studies Presented to Theodore Besterman, edited by W. H. Barber et al. (Edinburgh and London, I967).

Studs. Volt. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century.

An asterisk denotes that I have not been able to consult the item in question.

A EDITIONS

I Contes et romans, edited by R. Pomeau (3 vols, Paris and Florence, 1961) 2 Candide, ed. A. Morize (3e tirage, Paris, I957) 3 Candide, ed. 0. R. Taylor (Oxford, I942) 4 Candide, ed. L. G. Crocker (London, 1958) 5 Candide, ed. R. Pomeau (Paris, 1959) 6 Candide, ed. J. H. Brumfitt (Oxford, 1968) 7 Candide, ed. C. Thacker (Geneva and Paris, I968) 8 L'Ingenu, ed. W. R. Jones (Geneva and Paris, revised edition, 1957) 9 L'Ingenu: Anecdotes sur Belisaire, ed. J. Varloot (Paris, 1955)

Io L'Ingdnu and Histoire de Jenni, ed. J. H. Brumfitt and M. I. Gerard Davis (Oxford, 1960) I Les Lettres d'Amabed, ed. A. Jovicevich (Paris, 1961) I2 Voltaire's 'Micromegas': A Study in the Fusion of Science, Myth, and Art, ed. I. O. Wade (Princeton,

1950) 13 Le Taureau blanc, ed. R. Pomeau (Paris, 1956) 14 Zadig, ed. G. Ascoli (2e tirage revu et complete parJ. Fabre, 2 vols, Paris, 1962) 15 Zadig, ed. V. L. Saulnier (Geneva and Paris, 1956) I6 'Zadig' and Other 'Contes', ed. H. T. Mason (Oxford, to appear)



Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'IEtat Present'

G. Ascoli, 'Voltaire: l'art du conteur', Revue des Cours et Conferences, 26 (I924-5), 619-26 G. Barber, 'The Cramers of Geneva and Their Trade in Europe Between 1755 and 1766', Studs. Volt., 30 (1964), 377-413 G. Barber, review of I. 0. Wade, Voltaire and 'Candide', The Library, I6 (1961), 68-7I G. Barber, 'Two English Editions of La VNouvelle Heloise, 1761', M.L.R., 56 (196I), 225-8 W. H. Barber, 'L'Angleterre dans Candide', Revue de Littdrature Comparee, 37 (I963), 202-15 W. H. Barber, 'The Genesis of Voltaire's Micromegas', French Studies, I I (1957), I-I5 W. H. Barber, Voltaire: Candide (London, 1960) J. Barchilon, 'Uses of the Fairy Tale in the Eighteenth Century', Studs. Volt., 24 (1963), I II-38 Y. Belaval, 'Le Conte philosophique', AE, 308-17 Y. Belaval, 'L'Esprit de Voltaire', Studs. Volt., 24 (1963), 139-54 M. Bertrand, 'L'Amour et la sexualite dans Candide', French Review, 37 (1963-4), 619-25 T. Besterman, 'Voltaire et le desastre de Lisbonne: ou, la mort de l'optimisme', Studs. Volt., 2 (1956), 7-24 L. L. Bongie, 'Crisis and Birth of the Voltairean conte', M.L.Q., 23 (I962), 53-64 W. F. Bottiglia, 'Candide's Garden', P.M.L.A., 66 (I951), 718-33 W. F. Bottiglia, 'The Eldorado Episode in Candide', P.M.L.A., 73 (1958), 339-47 W. F. Bottiglia, 'Voltaire's Candide: Analysis of a Classic', Studs. Volt., 7 A (1964) P. Brady, 'Is Candide Really "Rococo"?', L'Esprit Createur, 7 (I967), 234-42 R. A. Brooks, 'Voltaire and Garcilaso de la Vega', Studs. Volt., 30 (I964), 189-204 R. A. Brooks, Voltaire and Leibniz (Geneva, I964) J. H. Broome, 'Voltaire and Fougeret de Monbron: A Candide Problem Reconsidered', M.L.R., 55 (1960), 509-I8 J. H. Brumfitt, 'The Present State of Voltaire Studies', Forum for Modern Language Studies, I (I965), 230-9 J.-D. Candaux, 'La Publication de Candide a Paris', Studs. Volt., 18 (1961), 173-8 E. Cassirer, Die Philosophie der Aufklirung (Tiibingen, 1932) F. Castets, 'Candide, de Voltaire, Simplicius, de Grimmelshausen, et Candido, dans L'Honnete Courtisane', Revue des langues romanes (I905), pp. 481 if. P.-G. Castex, Voltaire: Micromegas, Candide, L'Ingenu (Paris, 1961) P. Cherchi, 'Alcune note per un commento al Candide', Zeitschriftfiir Franzosische Sprache und Literatur, 78 (1968), 44-53 C. Cherpack, 'Proportion in Micromegas', M.L.N., 70 (1955), 512-14 C. Cherpack, 'Voltaire's Histoire de Jenni: A Synthetic Creed', M.P., 54 (1956-7), pp. 26-32 G. Chinard, L'Amerique et le reve exotique dans la litteraturefrancaise au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siecle (Paris, I913) G. Choptrayanov, Essai sur 'Candide' (Skopje, 1943) A. Cioranescu, L'Arioste en France des origines a lafin du XVIIIe siecle (2 vols, Paris, 1939) P. M. Conlon, 'A Bicentenary: Voltaire's Candide, I759-I959', AUMLA, I2 (1959), 20-9 H. Coulet, 'La Candeur de Candide', Annales de la faculte d'Aix-en-Provence (I960), 87-99 F. J. Crowley, 'Note sur Le Taureau blanc', Revue d'Histoire Litteraire de la France, 61 (I96I), 60-I A. Delattre, Voltaire l'impetueux (Paris, 1957) A. G. Engstrom, 'Lucretius and Micromegas', Studies Presented to W. M. Dey, ed. V. T. Holmes et al. (Chapel Hill, I950), pp. 59-60 R. Falke, 'Eldorado: le meilleur des mondes possibles', Studs. Volt., 2 (1956), 25-41 M. Fields, 'La Premiere Edition francaise de la Princesse de Babylone', Studs. Volt., I8 (1961), 179-82 D. Flower, 'Candide, A Perennial Problem', The Book Collector, 8 (I959), 284-8 R. C. Flowers, Voltaire's Stylistic Transformation of Rabelaisian Satirical Devices (Washington, I95I) M. Fontius, Voltaire in Berlin: Zur Geschichte der bei G. C. Walther veroffentlichten Werke Voltaires (Berlin, 1966) M. Foster, Voltaire's 'Candide' and the Critics (Belmont, 1962) A. Foulet, 'Zadig and Job', M.L.N., 75 (I960), 421-3 H. Friedrich, 'Candide (I759)', La Table Ronde, I22 (I958), I09-I5 H. Friedrich, 'Voltaire und seine Romane', Die Neue Rundschau, 70 (I959), 78-99

32

B CRITICAL WORKS

I7 18

I9 20

21

22

23 24

25 26

27 28

29

30

3I 32 33 34 35 36

37

38 39

*40

41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48

*49 50

5I

52

53 54

55 56

57

*58 59 60 6I



H. T. MASON 33

62 B. Gagnebin, 'L'Edition originale de Candide', Bulletin du Bibliophile et du Bibliothecaire, 4 (1952), I69-8I

63 B. Gagnebin, 'L'Edition originale de Candide', B.B.B., 8 (1960), 22-31 64 R. Ginsberg, 'The Argument of Voltaire's L'Homme aux quarante ecus: A Study in Philosophic

Rhetoric', Studs. Volt., 56 (I967), 611-57 *65 D. L. Gobert, 'A Study of Comic Aspects in the Principal Contes Philosophiques of Voltaire',

Dissertation Abstracts, 21 (1961) 66 D. L. Gobert, 'Comic in Micromegas as Expressive of Theme', Studs. Volt., 37 (1965), 53-60 67 E.J. H. Greene, 'The Destiny of Zadig', E.C., 7 (1967), 243-5I 68 E. P. Grobe, 'Aspectual Parody in Voltaire's Candide', Symposium, 21 (1967), 38-49 69 E. P. Grobe, 'Discontinuous Aspect in Voltaire's Candide', M.L.N., 82 (I967), 334-46 70 P. J. Guinard, 'Une adaptation espagnole de Zadig au XVIIIe siecle', R.L.C., 32 (I958),

481-95 71 0. A. Haac, 'Voltaire and Leibniz: Two Aspects of Rationalism', Studs. Volt., 25 (1963),

795-809 72 P. Haffter, 'L'Usage satirique des causales dans les contes de Voltaire', Studs. Volt., 53 (I967),

7-28 *73 J. V. L. Harvie, La Dimension du temps et de l'espace dans les contes philosophiques de Voltaire (M.A.

dissertation, University of Alberta, 1966) 74 G. R. Havens, 'The Composition of Voltaire's Candide', M.L.N., 47 (I932), 225-34 75 A. Jovicevich, 'A propos d'une Pamela de Voltaire', F.R., 36 (I962-3), 276-83 76 A. Jovicevich, 'Note sur L'Homme aux quarante ecus de Voltaire', R.H.L., 63 (I963), 278-81 77 E. Kahane, 'Micromigas et l'anticipation scientifique', Europe, 37 (May-June I959), 129-36 78 L. W. Kahn, 'Voltaire's Candide and the Problem of Secularization', P.M.L.A., 67 (I952),

886-8 *79 H. Knobloch, Witzgegenstdnde und Witzformen in der erzdhlenden Prosa Voltaires (Dissertation,

Cologne, 1937) 80 N. Kotta, 'L'Homme aux quarante ecus': A Study of Voltairian Themes (The Hague and Paris,

1966) 8I R. Laufer, 'Candide: joyau du style rococo', Australian Journal of French Studies, I (1964), I34-45 82 R. Laufer, Style rococo, style des 'lumieres' (Paris, 1963) 83 R. P. Legros, 'L'Orlando furioso et la Princesse de Babylone de Voltaire', M.L.R., 22 (1927),

i55-6i 84 R. A. Leigh, 'From the Inegalite to Candide: Notes on a Desultory Dialogue Between Rousseau

and Voltaire (I755-I759)', AE, pp. 66-92 85 V. Leo, 'Phenomenological and Experimental Styles in the French Enlightenment', Roman-

ische Forschungen, 62 (I950), 20 -7 86 J. Liechtenstein, 'The Title of Voltaire's Zadig', F.R., 33 (I959-6o), 65-7 87 S. B. Liljegren, 'Voltaire et l'Angleterre d'apres La Princesse de Babylone', Melanges dephilologie

offerts a M. Jehan Melander (Uppsala, I943) 88 H. Loss, 'A Prototype of the Story in Zadig (Ch. III): "Le Chien et le cheval" ', M.L.N., 52

(I937), 576-7 89 V. S. Lublinsky, 'La Bibliotheque de Voltaire', R.H.L., 58 (I958), 467-88 go D. McGhee, 'The Conte Philosophique Bridging A Century', P.M.L.A., 58 (i943), 438-49 91 D. McGhee, Fortunes of A Tale: The Philosophic Tale in France - Bridging the Eighteenth and

Nineteenth Centuries (Menasha, Wisconsin, I954) 92 D. McGhee, Voltairian Narrative Devices As Considered in the Author's 'Contes Philosophiques'

(Menasha, Wisconsin, I933) 93 D. McGhee, 'Voltaire's Candide and Gracian's El Criticon', P.M.L.A., 52 (I937), 778-84 94 A. L. Marsland, 'Voltaire: Satire and Sedition', Romanic Review, 57 (1966), 35-40 95 H. T. Mason, 'The Unity of Voltaire's L'Ingenu', AE, pp. 93-Io6 96 H. T. Mason, 'Voltaire and Camus', R.R., 59 (1968), 198-212 97 H. T. Mason, 'Voltaire and Manichean Dualism', Studs. Volt., 26 (I963), II43-60 97 bis H. T. Mason, 'A Biblical "Conte Philosophique": Voltaire's Taureau blanc', Eighteenth-

century French Studies, ed. E. T. Dubois et al (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1969), pp. 55-69 98 P. de Meuron, 'A propos de l'originale de Candide', B.B.B., 17 (I938), pp. 479-80 99 M. E. Meyer, 'Une source de l'Ingenu: les Voyages du baron de La Hontan', R.C.C., 31 (1929-

30), 56I-76, 746-62 oo00 H. Meyerson, 'Note on the Etymology of Names in Voltaire's Zadig', M.L.N., 54 (i939),

597-8



34 Voltaire's 'Contes': An 'ltat Present'

*IoI P. Mitchell, The Style of Voltaire [i.e., chiefly in the contes] (Ph.D. dissertation in progress, University of Kent)

o02 A. Morize, 'Le Candide de Voltaire', Revue du dix-huitieme si?cle, I (1913), 1-27 103 D. Mornet, 'Les Imitations du Candide de Voltaire au XVIIIe siecle', Melanges offerts a M. G.

Lanson (Paris, 1922), pp. 298-303 104 R. Mortier, 'Deux imitations oubliees de Candide au XVIIIe siecle', ANeophilologus, 35 (1951),

17-24 105 V. Mylne, 'Literary Techniques and Methods in Voltaire's Contes philosophiques', Studs. Volt.,

57 (I967), 1055-80 o06 R. E. Najem, 'A Critical Edition of Voltaire's Histoire de Jenni', D.A., I8 (1958), 2146-7

107 L. Nedergaard-Hansen, 'Sur la date de composition de l'Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado', Studs. Volt., 2 (1956), 273-7

Io8 L. Nedergaard-Hansen, 'Sur l'identite du baron de Gangan avec Micromegas et d'autres contributions a la comprehension des contes de Voltaire', Orbis litterarum, 9 (I954), 222-32; Io (I955), 429-42.

o09 J. Nivat, 'L'Ingenu de Voltaire, les jesuites et l'affaire La Chalotais', Revue des sciences humaines, 66 (I952), 97-Io8

IIo D. D. R. Owen, 'Aucassin et Nicolette and the Genesis of Candide', Studs. Volt., 41 (1966), 203-17

II J. Pappas, 'Candide: r6trecissement ou expansion?', Diderot Studies, io (1968), 241-63 *112 J. Pappas, 'Voltaire and the Problem of Evil', E.C., 3 (1963), 199-206 *1I3 C. Perin, 'La Structure de Candide', Dialogues (Istanbul), 2 (1951)

II4 R. Pomeau, 'Etat present des etudes voltairiennes', Studs. Volt. [Travaux sur Voltaire], I (I955), 183-200

*115 R. Pomeau, 'La Genese de Candide', Bulletin de la Societe toulousaine d'etudes classiques (March I958)

I 6 R. Pomeau, 'Une esquisse in6dite de l'Inginu', R.H.L., 6I (1961), 58-60 117 R. Pomeau, 'Voltaire conteur: masques et visages', L'Information litteraire, 13 (1961), I-5 I 8 J. Pommier, 'Le Cycle de Chactas', R.L.C., I8 (1938), 604-29

* 119 J. Pommier, 'Notes sur des sources de Candide', Bulletin de la Faculte des lettres de Strasbourg, 4 (1925-6)

I20 W.R. Price, The Symbolism of Voltaire's Novels, with Special Reference to 'Zadig' (New York, 191 I) 121 F. Pruner, 'Recherches sur la cr6ation romanesque dans L'Ingenu de Voltaire', Archives des

lettres modernes, 30 (1960) 122 A.-M. Rousseau, 'En marge de Candide: Voltaire et l'affaire Byng', R.L.C., 34 (1960), 261-73 I23 E. E. Rovillain, 'L'Ingenu de Voltaire: quelques influences', P.M.L.A., 44 (1929), 537-45 124 E. E. Rovillain, 'Rapports probables entre le Zadig de Voltaire et la pensee stoicienne',

P.M.L.A., 52 (i937), 374-89 125 E. E. Rovillain, 'Sur le Zadig de Voltaire: quelques influences probables', P.M.L.A., 43

(1928), 447-55 126 E. E. Rovillain, 'Sur le Zadig de Voltaire: quelques autres influences', P.M.L.A., 46 (193I),

533-9 127 E. Ryding, 'Voltaire et Bayle: Etude sur Candide', Lychnos (Uppsala) (i953), 260-4 128 J. Sareil, 'L'Amour dans Candide', Symposium, I8 (1964), 273-8 129 J. Sareil, 'De Zadig a Candide, ou permanence de la pens6e de Voltaire', R.R., 52 (1961),

271-8 I30 J. Sareil, Essai sur 'Candide' (Geneva, I967) 131 J. Sareil, 'La Repetition dans les contes de Voltaire', F.R., 35 (1961-2), 137-46 132 V. Schick, 'Voltaire's Adaptation of a Literary Source in Zadig', Studs. Volt., 57 (1967),

1377-86 I33 V. Schick, Zur Erzdhltechnik in Voltaires 'Contes' (Munich, 1968) I34 W. Seele, Voltaire's Roman 'Zadig ou la Destinee': eine Quellenforschung (Leipzig, 1891) 135 E. P. Shaw, 'A Note on the Publication of Candide', M.L.N., 71 (1956), 430-I 136 J. S. Siegel, 'Voltaire, Zadig, and the Problem of Evil', R.R., 50 (I959), 25-34

*I37 L. Spitzer, Romanische Stil- und Literaturstudien, Vol. II (Marburg, I93I) 138 J. Starobinski, 'La Doppietta di Voltaire', Strumenti critici, I (1966-7), 13-32 139 S. S. B. Taylor, 'L'Ingenu, the Huguenots and Choiseul', AE, pp. 107-36 140 J. Tannery, 'L'Edition originale de Candide', B.B.B., 12 (I933), 7-I5; 13 (I934), 62-70;

I7 (I938), 246-51 14I C. Thacker, 'The Misplaced Garden? Voltaire, Julian and Candide', Studs. Volt., 41 (1966),

I89-202



H. T. MASON 35

142 C. Thacker, 'Son of Candide', Studs. Volt., 58 (1967), 1515-31 143 P. Toldo, 'Voltaire conteur et romancier', Z.f.s.l., 40 (I9I2-13), 131-85 144 V. W. Topazio, Voltaire: A Critical Study of His Major Works (New York, 1967) 145 N. L. Torrey, 'Candide's Garden and the Lord's Vineyard', Studs. Volt., 27 (1963), 1657-66 146 N. L. Torrey, 'The Date of Composition of Candide, and Voltaire's Corrections', M.L.N., 44

(1929), 445-7 147 N. L. Torrey, 'The First Edition of Candide', M.L.N., 48 (I933), 307-I0 148 J. Van den Heuvel, 'Le Conte voltairien ou la confidence deguisee', T.R., I22 (1958), 1 I6-2I

I49 J. Van den Heuvel, Voltaire dans ses contes: De 'Micromegas' a 'L'Ingenu' (Paris, 1967) 15o F. Vanderem, 'Les Deux Candide', B.B.B., I6 (I937), I5I-2 151 F. Vanderem, 'Encore Voltaire', B.B.B., 17 (1938), 433-6 152 F. Vanderem, 'Precisions et conclusions sur l'originale de Candide', B.B.B., 17 (1938), 289-93 153 F. Vanderem, 'La Veritable Originale de Candide et les conclusions de M. Jean Tannery',

B.B.B., 17 (I938), 337-44 I54 G. L. Van Roosbroeck, 'A Neglected Source of Zadig', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 33

(1932), 224-6 I55 G. L. Van Roosbroeck, 'Notes on Voltaire', M.L.N., 39 (1924), I-Io

156 J. Varloot, 'La Philosophie et la politique dans les Contes de Voltaire', La Pensee, 88 (I959), 41-50

157 J. R. Vignery, 'Voltaire's Economic Ideas as Revealed in the romans and contes', F.R., 33 (I959-60), 257-63

158 E. Von der Miihll, 'Une source du Zadig de Voltaire', M.L.N., 52 (I937), 268-9 159 I. O. Wade, 'A Manuscript of Voltaire's Candide', Proceedings of the American Philosophical

Society, o10 (I957), 93-Io5 I6o I. O. Wade, 'The First Edition of Candide: A Problem in Identification', The Princeton University

Library Chronicle, 20 (1959), 63-88 i6i I. 0. Wade, 'The La Valliere MS of Candide', F.R., 30 (I956), 3-4 162 I. 0. Wade, The Search for a .Jew Voltaire (Philadelphia, 1958) 163 I. 0. Wade, Studies on Voltaire, with Some Unpublished Papers of Madame du Chdtelet (Princeton,

'947) i64 I. 0. Wade, Voltaire and 'Candide': A Study in the Fusion qf History, Art, and Philosophy (Princeton,

I959) 65 J. G. Weightman, 'The Quality of Candide', Essays Presented to C. M. Girdlestone (Newcastle

upon Tyne, 1960) I66 K. B. Whitworth, 'A Study of Voltaire's Thought and Expression in Le Crocheteur borgne and

Zadig', D.A., 13 (1953), 397-8



MASON - Voltaire's "Contes"- An "État Présent"

Documents

Transcript of MASON - Voltaire's "Contes"- An "État Présent"