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The Quotable Voltaire . Edited by Garry Apgar and Edward M. Langille

2022; Oxford University Press; Volume: 76; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fs/knac149

1468-2931

Nicholas Cronk,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

Voltaire is the most quotable of authors, and the major part of this book is taken up with quotations of the great man, given here in the original French followed by a translation, and arranged alphabetically by topic, from Bayle to Zoroaster, from adultery to virginity (‘c’est une des superstitions de l’esprit humain d’avoir imaginé que la virginité pouvait être une vertu’, p. 253). This is followed by a section, ‘Contemporary Opinion’, made up of appraisals of Voltaire by his contemporaries; a final part, ‘Posterity Weighs In’, brings together comments from modern writers and academics that often reveal more about the present-day author than about Voltaire, for example Terry Eagleton’s remark that ‘Voltaire sees the history of civilisation as the story of how it grew bloated on the blood of the poor’ (cited, p. 330). The editors are punctilious in their scholarship, and many quotations that feel vaguely familiar are here pinned down reassuringly to a precise source; so we learn that ‘N’est-il pas honteux que les fanatiques ayent du zèle et que les sages n’en ayent pas? Il faut être prudent; mais non pas timide’ (p. 102; the editors retain original spelling) comes from the little-known Pensées détachées de M. l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre. Another quotation that usually appears in truncated form is given here properly as ‘Il vit qu’il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort’ (p. 97); the remark, taken from the ‘Catalogue des écrivains’ of the Siècle de Louis XIV, gains in incisiveness when we know that the ‘il’ in question is Fontenelle (with whom Voltaire had a complicated relationship of sometimes respectful rivalry). Not all the quotations recycle Voltairean values: when James Boswell asked in 1764 if he still spoke English, the patriarche de Ferney replied in the negative and in French: ‘Pour parler anglois il faut mettre la langue entre les dents, et j’ai perdu mes dents’ (p. 93). Mention should be made too of the illustrations. It has been long recognized that the familiar pronouncement ‘I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’ was coined not by Voltaire but by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall; her stirring words now figure widely on mugs and t-shirts, but who knew that in 1925 they were carved in stone at the entrance to the offices of the Chicago Tribune? — and we have here the photo to prove it (p. xii). There is a serious side to this verbal firework display. Voltaire’s quotability, his inimitable style that was so widely imitated, was a key factor in helping him achieve and sustain the celebrity status that underpinned his authority as an Enlightenment philosophe, and this volume helps us reflect on that accomplishment. The editors are both well-known specialists of Voltaire, and their enthusiastic advocacy shines through in this immensely enjoyable and well-researched volume.