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Voltaire. Una vida (Ariel)
La biografía definitiva de Voltaire (1694-1778), desde sus escandalosos amoríos y maniobras políticas hasta su inspirada filosofía.
Si bien pensamos en Voltaire como el arquetipo de la Ilustración, pocos saben que en su época también fue la figura más famosa y controvertida de Europa. A lo largo de su vida, sus obras y opiniones le granjearon un sinnúmero de críticos, adversarios y censores por desafiar, sobre todo, a los dos poderes fácticos de su la Iglesia católica y la monarquía.
Sus exilios y estancias en otros países lo pusieron en contacto con algunas de las personalidades e ideas más progresistas de la época; fue Voltaire quien introdujo los escritos de Isaac Newton y John Locke a Francia. Su desaprobación a la tortura, la guerra, la persecución religiosa y la monarquía absoluta, así como su defensa de la igualdad, el progreso y la libertad, tanto de culto como de expresión, allanaron el camino para las ideas que instigarían la Revolución francesa en 1789 e inspiraron a grandes intelectuales estadounidenses, como Benjamin Franklin y Thomas Jefferson.
Fue un escritor versátil y prolí es autor de obras de teatro, poemas, panfletos, tratados filosóficos, históricos y científicos y una monumental correspondencia que abarca casi 20 000 cartas. Su obra está considerada, además, como uno de los grandes monumentos de la literatura francesa; su influencia fue tal que, para muchos franceses, el siglo XVIII es el «siglo de Voltaire».
Si bien pensamos en Voltaire como el arquetipo de la Ilustración, pocos saben que en su época también fue la figura más famosa y controvertida de Europa. A lo largo de su vida, sus obras y opiniones le granjearon un sinnúmero de críticos, adversarios y censores por desafiar, sobre todo, a los dos poderes fácticos de su la Iglesia católica y la monarquía.
Sus exilios y estancias en otros países lo pusieron en contacto con algunas de las personalidades e ideas más progresistas de la época; fue Voltaire quien introdujo los escritos de Isaac Newton y John Locke a Francia. Su desaprobación a la tortura, la guerra, la persecución religiosa y la monarquía absoluta, así como su defensa de la igualdad, el progreso y la libertad, tanto de culto como de expresión, allanaron el camino para las ideas que instigarían la Revolución francesa en 1789 e inspiraron a grandes intelectuales estadounidenses, como Benjamin Franklin y Thomas Jefferson.
Fue un escritor versátil y prolí es autor de obras de teatro, poemas, panfletos, tratados filosóficos, históricos y científicos y una monumental correspondencia que abarca casi 20 000 cartas. Su obra está considerada, además, como uno de los grandes monumentos de la literatura francesa; su influencia fue tal que, para muchos franceses, el siglo XVIII es el «siglo de Voltaire».
724 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 25, 2020
Informativo, mas não muito mais que isso. A tarefa deste livro é hercúlea: Voltaire é o gigante do Iluminismo. Apesar de ter vivido numa época intelectualmente rica, Voltaire estava um pouco mais à frente.
É um dos grandes mestres do pensamento crítico. Mordaz, divertido e muito inteligente. Entre Diderot, Rousseau, D'Alambert, etc., Voltaire continua a destacar-se. Esta obra traça uma abordagem didática mas não explora o sentido mais profundo da obra de Voltaire. Contudo, como pré-leitura da sua obra, serve bem o propósito.
É um dos grandes mestres do pensamento crítico. Mordaz, divertido e muito inteligente. Entre Diderot, Rousseau, D'Alambert, etc., Voltaire continua a destacar-se. Esta obra traça uma abordagem didática mas não explora o sentido mais profundo da obra de Voltaire. Contudo, como pré-leitura da sua obra, serve bem o propósito.
August 2, 2014
The point of biography is to tell the story of a life and - if possible - to tell you why that life in particular was significant.
Ian Davidson's Voltaire: A Life does an excellent job of the first but at best a middling job of the second. To be fair, he is clear in his intentions. He hasn't set out to write a literary or philosophical biography - the clue is in the title. And it's an easy read of a busy and varied career.
But why do we keep returning to Voltaire nearly three centuries later? It's for what has lasted those long years - works like his English Letters and Candide, his campaigns against the ancien regime's inept, brutal and theocratic criminal justice system, as well as his symbolic value as a rallying point for rationality.
Davidson may give us Voltaire the man, but does not provide enough context and backdrop to render his real contributions to the world at all meaningful to the reader. Instead, he pays too much attention to his financial and domestic activities, the day-to-day minutiae all too available from so prolific a correspondent (20,000 letters over his lifetime).
All of which would be fine, if a social history of Voltaire and his life was what was most needed. But, in an age where Enlightenment values are under attack as never before, as Davidson himself notes - there has never been a better time to return to and examine their legacy.
In his attacks on miscarriages of justice, Voltaire mocks the idea that one eighth of a proof, times eight, adds up to a proof. Davidson's biography effectively has the same flaw - the assumption that a wealth of factual information about his subject will give you a sense of the whole.
It's a necessary beginning in the search for significance - of course. But only a beginning.
Ian Davidson's Voltaire: A Life does an excellent job of the first but at best a middling job of the second. To be fair, he is clear in his intentions. He hasn't set out to write a literary or philosophical biography - the clue is in the title. And it's an easy read of a busy and varied career.
But why do we keep returning to Voltaire nearly three centuries later? It's for what has lasted those long years - works like his English Letters and Candide, his campaigns against the ancien regime's inept, brutal and theocratic criminal justice system, as well as his symbolic value as a rallying point for rationality.
Davidson may give us Voltaire the man, but does not provide enough context and backdrop to render his real contributions to the world at all meaningful to the reader. Instead, he pays too much attention to his financial and domestic activities, the day-to-day minutiae all too available from so prolific a correspondent (20,000 letters over his lifetime).
All of which would be fine, if a social history of Voltaire and his life was what was most needed. But, in an age where Enlightenment values are under attack as never before, as Davidson himself notes - there has never been a better time to return to and examine their legacy.
In his attacks on miscarriages of justice, Voltaire mocks the idea that one eighth of a proof, times eight, adds up to a proof. Davidson's biography effectively has the same flaw - the assumption that a wealth of factual information about his subject will give you a sense of the whole.
It's a necessary beginning in the search for significance - of course. But only a beginning.
December 21, 2011
an entertaining and informative bio of Voltaire, Ian Davidson now THE expert on voltaire in the pop bio field with this title and his "Voltaire in Exile: the last years, 1753-1778", which this title here also covers, maybe even better than the "exile" title, though "A life" covers the years 1700-1778. Most of the narrative here is told through letters to and from voltaire, he wrote [the lion's share] and received over 15,000 letters, but there are also a few biographies Davidson uses such as Pomeau's "Voltaire en son temps" and the massive publications (massively expensive too, at over $100/volume) of the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford uk, and Moland's CD-ROM of Voltaire's "complete works" [not really that complete] and the past benchmark bio, "Voltaire" by Besterman, 1969, and enlightenment works by Robert Darton, Jonathan Isreal, and Peter Gay, among others, oh, and also Beccaria's "On Crimes and Punishments". i mention all these sources as Davidson chronicles Voltaires work as a humanist and standing up for the the little guy in the face of grotesque criminal punishments like the little and big tortures, the pulling apart of humans by horses, the burning on pyres etc etc...by the ancien regime. and also the books and letters Voltaire wrote questioning the richs' rights to rule over everybody else with the help of the catholic church up to and including publicly flogging and burning his books on the church steps. an enlightening, amusing, and fun bio of one of the first thinkers to question the "right" of the rich to treat everybody else live their slave, and fascinating look at Voltaires interactions, friendships and fusses with Diderot, d'Alembert, Frederick [the great], madame de deffand, de Condorcet, his closest friend d'Argental, etc etc etc. here's a funny excerpt on shakespeare, who became all the rage in 1770's france after a new translation by Le Tourneur, and was WAY MORE popular on the stage than Voltaires plays, which pissed off Voltaire no end:
"I must tell you how upset I am for the honour of the theatre, against a certain Tourneur, who is said to be Secretary of the Office of Publishing (LA Librairie), but who does not seem to me the Secretary of good taste. Have you read two volumes by this miserable fellow, in which he wants to make us treat Shakespeare as the only model of true tragedy? He calls him 'the god of the theatre'. He sacrifices all Frenchmen, without exception, to his idol, as they used to sacrifice pigs to Ceres in the old days. He does not even deign to mention Corneille and Racine; these two great men are merely wrapped up in the general proscription, without their names even being mentioned.
What is frightful is that this monster has a following in France; and the height of calamity and horror is that it was I who was once the first to speak of this Shakespeare, it was I who was the first to show the French some pearls that I had discovered in his enormous dung-heap."
"I must tell you how upset I am for the honour of the theatre, against a certain Tourneur, who is said to be Secretary of the Office of Publishing (LA Librairie), but who does not seem to me the Secretary of good taste. Have you read two volumes by this miserable fellow, in which he wants to make us treat Shakespeare as the only model of true tragedy? He calls him 'the god of the theatre'. He sacrifices all Frenchmen, without exception, to his idol, as they used to sacrifice pigs to Ceres in the old days. He does not even deign to mention Corneille and Racine; these two great men are merely wrapped up in the general proscription, without their names even being mentioned.
What is frightful is that this monster has a following in France; and the height of calamity and horror is that it was I who was once the first to speak of this Shakespeare, it was I who was the first to show the French some pearls that I had discovered in his enormous dung-heap."
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September 17, 2019An illuminating biography of a man most of us know of but hardly seem to know at all. I appreciated the fragments of his personal correspondence throughout his life which, for me, let him speak throughout the book alongside the author and forms the backbone of the narrative. I am intrigued now to read his plays (though many of which were unsuccessful) and keep returning to his quotes on social injustice and abuses of power which are so strikingly relevant in 2019.
“To burn a book of argument is to say ‘We do not have enough wit to reply to it.’”
“Is there anything more tyrannical, for example, than to remove the freedom of the press? And how can a people say it is free, when it is not not permitted to think in writing? Whoever has the power in his hands would like to put out the eyes of all those who are subordinate to him..... the madness of domination is like a sickness”
“To burn a book of argument is to say ‘We do not have enough wit to reply to it.’”
“Is there anything more tyrannical, for example, than to remove the freedom of the press? And how can a people say it is free, when it is not not permitted to think in writing? Whoever has the power in his hands would like to put out the eyes of all those who are subordinate to him..... the madness of domination is like a sickness”
October 4, 2016
A well-written biography that made me realize that Enlightenment hero Voltaire was a lot like modern playwrights and authors - egotistic, envious, and constantly sucking up to people who can help their careers. I preferred my more elevated view of Voltaire, but I suppose it's good that I know that he, like all the rest of us, had feet of clay.
December 9, 2012
A nice introduction for a novice Voltaire reader. I found it easy to read and informative. The author doesn't pretend it's a definitive account on Voltaire. I would recommend it as a good place to start on matters Voltaire , his writings & contemporaries.
January 4, 2021
A somewhat useful biography, if one tinged throughout with an unfortunate wish to best Besterman. So some ugly point-scoring mars the occasional footnotes. That seems a little glass house-ish of Davidson, since most of the first half of this biography is a prime example of what I might call literature of the subjunctive. Where less information is available about Voltaire's early life, one naturally has to be a little careful about drawing conclusions. Rather than frankly acknowledge his speculations, Davidson has all too frequent recourse to 'must have' 'could have' and the like. (A good example is his speculation that Bolingbroke's man of business John Brinsden must have supplied Voltaire's economic wants early on his arrival in England, evidence for which one searches the generally inadequate endnotes in vain.) If one wishes to compete with the master, one has to do a little better than this. But in the end, this isn't really a scholarly biography designed to compete with Besterman's. Instead, it is a jargon-free reappraisal, told in mostly brisk prose. A history for the well-meaning layperson, and in that respect it does just fine. If one has more scholarly aims in mind, you'll need to turn elsewhere (and you'll probably want to brush up on your French).
June 22, 2019
This one I didn't technically finish but it had to go back to the library. There is so much there. He gave just some 3 million words. Or was iot 5 million? Any way, I have a good many of them on my kindle. What a man. What a life?
October 20, 2020
Well done. Not a lot of new ground covered here, but an interesting read.
October 24, 2020
An excellent and very readable account.
March 9, 2021
An agile mind and along with it, an evasive, unpredictable, if not devious figure extraordinaire. Finally, a well deserved portrait.
December 13, 2024
Historical biography
February 3, 2021
Ian Davidson did something amazing. He made me fall in love. I confess before reading this biography, I knew Voltaire mainly by reputation. A couple years ago, I read and loved Candide. But that experience was all Voltaire and I ever shared. Occasionally in conversation and academics I came across him. He impressed me then, but I had no idea the diamond dangling in front of me. His place is in the pantheon of history. My only regret is I can not give this work a sixth star.
Voltaire’s literature, plays, social justice advocacy, philosophy, etcetera, changed his world. He changed our world. Was there ever another that gave so much to humanity? I will end with this. After reading this biography, if Voltaire does not immediately elevate to your favorite titan of history; I accuse you of not having read it. Well done Mr. Davidson. Bien joué! My obsession now is to read every word Voltaire ever scribbled.
“Let us tend our garden.”
Happy Reading
www.w-alexander.com
Voltaire’s literature, plays, social justice advocacy, philosophy, etcetera, changed his world. He changed our world. Was there ever another that gave so much to humanity? I will end with this. After reading this biography, if Voltaire does not immediately elevate to your favorite titan of history; I accuse you of not having read it. Well done Mr. Davidson. Bien joué! My obsession now is to read every word Voltaire ever scribbled.
“Let us tend our garden.”
Happy Reading
www.w-alexander.com
August 15, 2014
Since human perfection is a ridiculous ideal, people should be recognized as fully dimensional human beings. Seeing both the light and dark within a personality fosters a hope that we, as individuals, are capable of rising above our flaws in brief, shining moments that can indeed have a positive, lasting impact.
In "Voltaire: A Life" Ian Davidson allows Voltaire to reveal his humanity and reality in (for the most part) the philosopher's own words. There are things to hate, just as there are things to love about Voltaire. But most importantly, there are his words, his writings, his emotions, his mind and the evolution of his convictions. Presented beautifully by the author, it leads us to rediscover a splendidly-flawed man who managed to change the world.
Put simply, I loved this.
In "Voltaire: A Life" Ian Davidson allows Voltaire to reveal his humanity and reality in (for the most part) the philosopher's own words. There are things to hate, just as there are things to love about Voltaire. But most importantly, there are his words, his writings, his emotions, his mind and the evolution of his convictions. Presented beautifully by the author, it leads us to rediscover a splendidly-flawed man who managed to change the world.
Put simply, I loved this.
February 21, 2016
4 stars: Only because the book does not pretend to be anything other than a portrait of Voltaire through his letters and not more. There is nothing about his philosophy, or his works, and yes this is very disappointing. The book is an easy read, interesting (only because Voltaire's life is!), yet all the other characters all come off as one-dimensional. Because it's simply a chronology of Voltaire's life, there is no trace of how Voltaire even developed or changed as a person. At various points Davidson claims this is a turning point for Voltaire's life but fails to actually say why or how. In spite of all of this, it's still very readable and does the unbelievable task of sifting through Voltaire's 20,000 letters!
November 15, 2018
An eminently readable biography of a leading figure of the Enlightenment. Voltaire remains a controversial figure. Familiar though I was with the quantity of work Voltaire produced during his lifetime, the depth and variety of his correspondence was a surprise. This biography by using the letters by and to Voltaire along with comments by his contemporaries allows you to get closer to the man. This biography is not just for academics, it is informative and entertaining in equal measure.
July 16, 2016
Comprehensive account (rather than assessment) of Voltaire's life. An interesting companion volume to the excellent 'Voltaire in Exile', by the same author; the latter benefits from its compactness and focus on V the activist and champion of human rights. This, of necessity is much more expansive. Correctly, it doesn't stretch for an all-encompassing narrative; consequently, the completeness may be a bit of a dampener. Worth reading, nonetheless.
March 3, 2015
Oh, Voltaire, won't you be my historical boyfriend? I don't care if you have performance issues! I'll even ignore it when you make goo-goo eyes at that insufferable flirt Émilie d'Châtelet or use all our date-night time to fight for justice for victims of religious and/or judicial persecution... I promise, you + me = the best of all possible worlds!
June 25, 2012
This is a well-balanced biography. At times I worried that I was starting to dislike my hero, but by the end, when Voltaire's campaigns against the death penalty are described, my faith was restored. Should be compulsory reading for anybody living in Ferney (you know who you are)!
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May 14, 2011Skimmed this one. Interesting bits here and there. Not into it right now.
June 14, 2012
Amazing. The well written story of a fascinating person.
Read
March 11, 2012Omg what is the author's problem with Bush?
June 28, 2017
This reminded me why it's not always a good idea to read biographies of people you admire. You might find out they carried on an affair with their niece, for example. There are still plenty of other things to like about Voltaire, and I found it amusing that he made his fortune by manipulating the lottery. There was good stuff here, but overall I was a bit bored and bogged down. I skimmed some of the middle that focused too much on his love life, while barely any info was provided on his time spent writing his masterpiece, Candide. Worth a look if you're interested in Voltaire's' life but a bit disappointing to me.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews