Candide is a 1759 French
satire by the
Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. The
novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an
Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with
Leibnizian optimism by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not outright rejecting optimism, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the
best of all possible worlds".
Candide is known for its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. With a story similar to that of a more serious
bildungsroman or
picaresque novel, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the
Seven Years' War and the
1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the
problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. Today,
Candide is recognised as Voltaire's
magnum opus.