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قصص و حكايات

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199 pages

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About the author

Voltaire

9,462 books4,977 followers
Complete works (1880) : https://archive.org/details/oeuvresco...

In 1694, Age of Enlightenment leader Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris. Jesuit-educated, he began writing clever verses by the age of 12. He launched a lifelong, successful playwriting career in 1718, interrupted by imprisonment in the Bastille. Upon a second imprisonment, in which Francois adopted the pen name Voltaire, he was released after agreeing to move to London. There he wrote Lettres philosophiques (1733), which galvanized French reform. The book also satirized the religious teachings of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal, including Pascal's famed "wager" on God. Voltaire wrote: "The interest I have in believing a thing is not a proof of the existence of that thing." Voltaire's French publisher was sent to the Bastille and Voltaire had to escape from Paris again, as judges sentenced the book to be "torn and burned in the Palace." Voltaire spent a calm 16 years with his deistic mistress, Madame du Chatelet, in Lorraine. He met the 27 year old married mother when he was 39. In his memoirs, he wrote: "I found, in 1733, a young woman who thought as I did, and decided to spend several years in the country, cultivating her mind." He dedicated Traite de metaphysique to her. In it the Deist candidly rejected immortality and questioned belief in God. It was not published until the 1780s. Voltaire continued writing amusing but meaty philosophical plays and histories. After the earthquake that leveled Lisbon in 1755, in which 15,000 people perished and another 15,000 were wounded, Voltaire wrote Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (Poem on the Lisbon Disaster): "But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?"

Voltaire purchased a chateau in Geneva, where, among other works, he wrote Candide (1759). To avoid Calvinist persecution, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, where the wealthy writer lived for 18 years until his death. Voltaire began to openly challenge Christianity, calling it "the infamous thing." He wrote Frederick the Great: "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." Voltaire ended every letter to friends with "Ecrasez l'infame" (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). His pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) went after transubstantiation, miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, and the Christian God. Voltaire wrote that a true god "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough," or inspired "books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror." He also published excerpts of Testament of the Abbe Meslier, by an atheist priest, in Holland, which advanced the Enlightenment. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary was published in 1764 without his name. Although the first edition immediately sold out, Geneva officials, followed by Dutch and Parisian, had the books burned. It was published in 1769 as two large volumes. Voltaire campaigned fiercely against civil atrocities in the name of religion, writing pamphlets and commentaries about the barbaric execution of a Huguenot trader, who was first broken at the wheel, then burned at the stake, in 1762. Voltaire's campaign for justice and restitution ended with a posthumous retrial in 1765, during which 40 Parisian judges declared the defendant innocent. Voltaire urgently tried to save the life of Chevalier de la Barre, a 19 year old sentenced to death for blasphemy for failing to remove his hat during a religious procession. In 1766, Chevalier was beheaded after being tortured, then his body was burned, along with a copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. Voltaire's statue at the Pantheon was melted down during Nazi occupation. D. 1778.

Voltaire (1694-1778), pseudónimo de François-

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Profile Image for محمد.
88 reviews4 followers
June 15, 2023
الكثير من قصص فولتير تحكمها حبكة واحدة لا تتغير إلا في نواحيها الظاهرية. و لا أقصد بهذه الخلاصة بعض القصص الموجودة في هذه المجموعة القصصية فقط، بل أضم كذلك "كانديد" و "زديج" و "ميكروميغاس" و القصص و العبر المبعثرة في "رسائل فلسفية" و "رسالة في التسامح" و "قاموس فولتير الفلسفي".

و هذه الحبكة المتكررة هي حكاية عن شخصية أو عدة شخصيات، لا يهم عددهم، و بل يمكن القول أيضاً أنه لا يهم مستوى تفطنهم للخلاصات الفلسفية المقصود استنتاجها من هذه القصص. تقوم هذه الشخصية برحلة قسرية تكون مجبرة على القيام بها حول العالم فتختبر أثنائها نكهات من الثقافات المتنوعة، و في كل مرحلة تحط رحال هذه الشخصية في إحداها تَحُلُّ الصعاب و المشاكل و يمكن القول أيضاً الشرور عليها بغض النظر عن طبيعة تصرفها و إن كانت المسببة لهذه المحن. فهذا هو الموضوع الأساسي في هذا النوع من قصص فولتير المتكررة، أي محاولة وضع تبرير للسؤال القائل: "لماذا الشر موجود؟". و المكونان اللذان يستعين بهما فولتير لحل هذه المعضلة هما: ١- القدر. و ٢- محدودية الفكر البشري. و النتيجة التي يتوصل إليها هي: على الرغم من أنه لا يمكن القول بأن الشر غير موجود في عالمنا، لكن يمكن القول بأن هذا الشر هو أقل ما يمكن أن يكون عليه في العالم.

"ليست لدينا الجسارة لنقول: كل شيء خير. لكننا نقول: كل شيء أقل ما يمكن سوءاً". قاموس فولتير الفلسفي، ص٢٥٦

و كل هذا يستدله من المكون الثاني، محدودية الفكر البشري، الذي من خلاله يتوصل لوجود كائن أسمى أكثر إمكانية مننا في الفكر و أعظم منا قوة و هو خالقنا و مدبر أمورنا و واضع و حاكم أقدارنا - المكون الأول - [و هذه طبعاً مغالطة الجهل appeal to ignorance]. و يستعين فولتير في بعض هذه القصص بكائنات تتوسط بين البشر و الكائن الأسمى - ملائكة/جان - لتوحي بهذه الحكمة التي تفوق فهم البشر و يصعب عليهم التحصل عليها دون هذا التوسط.
Profile Image for Mohamed Elserry.
46 reviews41 followers
July 26, 2013
اعتقد القصص والحوارات اللي في الكتاب طلعت اقل مما كنت متوقع يمكن افضلهم قصة اميرة بابل والمتواسيان .بس الكاتب يريد ان يفرض رأيه كأنه الاصح وبكده بيناقض نفسه لما انتقد المفتشين .يحسب ليه الدعوة للتحرر من القيود والسلطة الدينية السائدة في عصره
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