Francis, born and raised in Paris, France, attended Jesuit College Louis-le-Grand. Voltaire left school at age seventeen claiming to only learn “Latin and the Stupidities” and quickly became friends with Parisian Aristocrats. Voltaire was born November 21, 1694 to an upper-middle class family and was the youngest of five. Despite of his sickly childhood, Francis was able to obtain a lively life until May 30, 1778. Francis grew closer to his free-thinking god-father, Abbé de Châteauneuf, after the death of his mother, Marie Marguerite d'Aumart. Along with many other influential ideas, Abbé de Châteauneuf introduced Francis to deism, the belief of God through natural reason rather than the supernatural. Francis Marie Arouet was profoundly interested
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While in prison at Bastille Francis wrote his first theatrical success Oedipe. From this, Francis developed the pen name “Voltaire” in order to hide himself from the French government. Upon returning to France after being exiled, Voltaire wrote Letters on the English Nation, which angered the French government and in 1733 he fled to Lorraine and returned to France in 1753. In 1759, Voltaire purchased estate “Ferney” which was located near the French-Swiss border in case he needed to flee the country on account of his controversial works. There, Francis produced a constant flow of literary works. Voltaire wrote over 14,000 known letters and over 2,000 books, plays and other literature. Voltaire’s plays came mostly in the form of a tragedy such as Mariamne written in 1724 and Zaïre written in 1732. Zaïre showed an opposition to his previous plays with his main protagonist suffering by certain events rather than suffering from a fatal flaw. Another one of Voltaire’s major works was Histoire ole Charles XII written in 1731. Voltaire’s Candide pointed out major potitical and social issues of the time by introducing the genre of
While in prison at Bastille Francis wrote his first theatrical success Oedipe. From this, Francis developed the pen name “Voltaire” in order to hide himself from the French government. Upon returning to France after being exiled, Voltaire wrote Letters on the English Nation, which angered the French government and in 1733 he fled to Lorraine and returned to France in 1753. In 1759, Voltaire purchased estate “Ferney” which was located near the French-Swiss border in case he needed to flee the country on account of his controversial works. There, Francis produced a constant flow of literary works. Voltaire wrote over 14,000 known letters and over 2,000 books, plays and other literature. Voltaire’s plays came mostly in the form of a tragedy such as Mariamne written in 1724 and Zaïre written in 1732. Zaïre showed an opposition to his previous plays with his main protagonist suffering by certain events rather than suffering from a fatal flaw. Another one of Voltaire’s major works was Histoire ole Charles XII written in 1731. Voltaire’s Candide pointed out major potitical and social issues of the time by introducing the genre of