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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, c 1600 to c 1800
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Voltaire - A sense of history (Paperback, New ed.)
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Voltaire - A sense of history (Paperback, New ed.)
Series: Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2004:05
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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It was not only in his histories that Voltaire thought, worried and
wrote about history. In fact, many of Voltaire's most provocative
and tantalising remarks on history lie outside the province of the
so-called OEuvres historiques, in the vast expanses of his complete
works, and historical events and historical figures elicit some of
his most imaginative writing. Voltaire's propensity to write about
history in works that are not histories sheds new light on his
historiographical thought and temper. The historian that emerges
from these pages is, by turns, a feverish, bed-ridden man haunted
by the St Bartholomew massacre (an overwhelming preoccupation of
Voltaire's, although it receives only cursory attention in the
prose histories) an inspired poet mythologising Henri IV's epic
adventures, a bawdy satirist amused by Joan of Arc, a raconteur
nourished by historical anecdotes, even a doting uncle winking at
his niece as he elaborates a philosophy of history. In all these
forms and at all these times, an interest in history is integral
and abiding. Far from being marginal or oblique, these works yield
important insights into a pervasive Voltairean sense of history
which finds in these different forms both the freedoms and the
traditions - and indeed often the readers - denied to the OEuvres
historiques. Moreover, innovative works like the Henriade and
Candide, which fall into this category, prove as influential to
historians as Voltaire's recognised histories. Voltaire's
prodigious energy and versatility in fields other than history have
probably harmed his reputation as a historian when, already in the
eighteenth century, historians were increasingly expected to be
specialists. This study shows that Voltaire's historiographical
thought ranges across areas and texts artificially sundered by
subsequent editorial compartmentalisations, and it reveals a
restlessly complex, inventive writer confronting history in
numerous different guises.
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