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Satire in the works of Voltaire and Swift
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The power of literature in determining and affecting behaviors and attitudes of the people behind historically significant change is quite significant. Enlightened philosophe Voltaire’s Candide in addition to Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal and Gulliver’s Travels were works of fiction that had such an effect. Through the use of the literary device of satire, Voltaire and Swift criticized certain aspects of their European society. Furthermore, they did so to a high degree of effectiveness. While Voltaire was one of the most influential philosophes, his Candide in fact satirized some of the very ideas discussed by his fellow philosophes. To begin, Voltaire’s use of capital letters to suggest the importance of the word he has capitalized is used in a satirical manner, criticizing its importance beneath the surface of the word. For instance, he refers to Candide as being “endowed by Nature with the most gentle character.” This possibly suggests Voltaire mocking the idea of a person being born with some “natural” superiority, a common belief amongst the aristocracy at the time. He continues this satirical attack with his suggestion that the baron’s sister would not marry Candide’s father as a result of his inability to prove more than “seventy-one quarterings,” a method of measuring nobility. In his manner of casually presenting the issue as if it were totally true and exaggerating it, Voltaire underlines the ridiculous nature of such beliefs. In doing so without outright saying it, Voltaire again criticizes the aristocracies attitudes and allows the reader to see how outlandish they are simply through the use of his words. Voltaire’s next subjects of criticism are philosophes, through the introduction of the character Pangloss. Such criticism can be seen in Pangloss’ study of “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology”, an obvious attempt to exaggerate the methods of philosophes who use great terminology and complexity in order to suggest their own importance and give weight to issues that should perhaps not be afforded such weight.
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