Biography Of Voltaire – Free PDF Download

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EARLY LIFE

François-Marie Arouet was born on 21 November 1694 in Paris, the youngest of the five children of François Arouet (1649–1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard (c. 1660–1701) whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility.
He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric;later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.

By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer.
In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands.
Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot-thick walls.
Most of Voltaire’s early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government. As a result, he was twice sentenced to prison.

In 1716, Voltaire was exiled to Tulle for mocking the duc d’Orleans. In 1717, he returned to Paris, only to be arrested and exiled to the Bastille for a year on charges of writing libelous poetry. Voltaire was sent to the Bastille again in 1726, for arguing with the Chevalier de Rohan.
This time he was only detained briefly before being exiled to England, where he remained for nearly three years.The publication of Voltaire’s Letters on the English(1733) angered the French church and government, forcing the writer to flee to safer pastures.
Voltaire moved to Prussia in 1750 as a member of Frederick the Great’s court, and spent later years in Geneva and Ferney. By 1778, he was recognized as an icon of the Enlightenment’s progressive ideals, and he was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to Paris. He died there shortly afterward, on May 30, 1778.

Voltaire wrote poetry and plays, as well as historical and philosophical works. His most well-known poetry includes The Henriade (1723) and The Maid of Orleans, which he started writing in 1730 but never fully completed.
Among the earliest of Voltaire’s best-known plays is his adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus, which was first performed in 1718.
Voltaire followed with a string of dramatic tragedies, including Mariamne (1724). Voltaire’s body of writing also includes the notable historical works The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756).

Voltaire’s popular philosophic works took the form of the short stories Micromégas (1752) and Plato’s Dream (1756), as well as the famed satirical novella Candide (1759), which is considered Voltaire’s greatest work.
Candide is filled with philosophical and religious parody, and in the end the characters reject optimism. There is great debate on whether Voltaire was making an actual statement about embracing a pessimistic philosophy or if he was trying to encourage people to be actively involved to improve society.
In 1764, he published another of his acclaimed philosophical works, Dictionnaire philosophique, an encyclopedic dictionary that embraced the concepts of Enlightenment.

He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people’s rights.
Embracing Enlightenment philosophers such as Isaac Newton, John Locke and Francis Bacon, Voltaire found inspiration in their ideals of a free and liberal society, along with freedom of religion and free commerce.
As a vegetarian and an advocate of animal rights, however, Voltaire praised Hinduism, stating Hindus were ” peaceful and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending themselves.”