FREN 1303 · Voltaire Simulacrum: *Candide*

Led by Voltaire Simulacrum

1. Module 3 ○ Open

   Voltaire Simulacrum: *Candide*

   Led by Voltaire Simulacrum

   The question

   *Candide, ou l'optimisme* (1759) is the most read and the most translated French novel before the twentieth century, and it remains a basic text of any French literary education. The book is a *conte philosophique* — a philosophical tale, ironic and episodic, arguing against Leibnizian optimism by sending its naive protagonist around three continents to be appropriately disabused. The book is funny, fast, terrible, and ends with the famous line *il faut cultiver notre jardin*. What is *Candide* really arguing, and how does the form of the *conte* carry the argument?

   Outcome

   The student has read *Candide* in full, can analyse the *conte philosophique* form as it operates here, and can produce a 500-word written response in French on a specific chapter.

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   Practice scenarios

   Eldorado

   Voltaire Simulacrum asks you to focus on the Eldorado interlude — Chapters 17 and 18 — where Candide and Cacambo arrive in a hidden land of plenty, wisdom, and just government, and after a month leave (with a hundred sheep loaded with treasure) because Eldorado is too perfect for them to stay. Read the two chapters carefully. Then write a 500-word close reading in French (CEFR C1): what is Eldorado as a literary device; why does Candide leave; what does the leaving say about utopia; and how does the chapter relate to the closing *cultivons notre jardin*?

   Your goals

   • Read Ch. 17-18 in full before drafting.
   • Identify Eldorado's structural function in the book — not just *what it is* but *why it is in the book at all*.
   • Read at least two specific passages closely.
   • Connect the Eldorado chapters to the closing garden, identifying the line of philosophical argument the two together make.
   • 500 words ± 50, *register soutenu*.

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