On the Necessity of Cultivating Our Garden: Voltaire’s Candide and Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle
p. 197-208
Texte intégral
1The purpose of this paper is to highlight what the two tales—Candide by Voltaire (1694-1778) and Leaf by Niggle by Tolkien (1892-1973)—may “have become for us” with regard to the necessity of cultivating our garden, “what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them” from the viewpoint of a contemporary reader1. It is therefore not intended to be a discussion about the two authors’ personal humus, their shared (supposed or imagined) sources nor about their likely divergences. In other words, if one may refer to the well-known metaphor on fairy stories, used by the British translator of folk tales, Dasent (1817-1896), and Tolkien himself, the purpose will not be to examine “the bones” of the ox that went into making “the soup” but to shed light on what the soup may eventually provide2.
2Even though the link between the eighteenth century French philosopher, historian and enlightenment writer, and the twentieth century English philologist, professor and fantasy writer might seem tenuous a priori, a closer look at Candide’s practical precept and at Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle may unveil unexpected points of convergence between these two thinkers when it comes to the concept of cultivating our garden.
3At the end of Candide (published in 1759), the eponymous hero decides to buy a farm and start a small community with his friends, after years of trials and tribulations in search of the lost terrestrial paradise of his childhood. He then declares to his companions: “We must cultivate our garden.” To which his tutor and mentor, the old philosopher Pangloss, acquiesces: “You are right […] for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle3.” And they all live happily thereafter…
4Pangloss is only expressing an orthodox view for, although Eden commonly evokes a place of peace, fecundity, bliss or ultimate happiness whose characteristics may remind us of the Golden Age in classical mythology, the Book of Genesis offers a more pragmatic vision of it: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it4”, thus seemingly implying that man’s original duty was to take care of the Lord’s creation, make a personal contribution and not just idly take advantage of its delights. Since the Fall, man has tried to recreate this mythical Paradise which has remained a symbol of life and hope. Whether they be the hanging gardens of Babylon or the blissful garden of the Hesperides, all these gardens participate in the same quest and reflect the cultures and societies which harbor them5.
5In January 1945, a little less than two centuries after the publication of Candide, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in one of his letters to his son Christopher: “Certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’6.” Tolkien had just published Leaf by Niggle, a short “self-descriptive” allegorical tale, in which he related man’s return journey to what could be seen as his native land, through the trajectory of Niggle and his neighbour Parish7. Both, in their own way, took part in this “tilling” and “keeping” of the land, by trying to cultivate their respective gardens. Niggle devoted his life to his inner, secret garden: his artistic painting; Parish, in a more down-to-earth, utilitarian manner, prided himself on his ability to grow his vegetable garden.
6In spite of the fact that the story of Eden was not exactly, as Tolkien said himself, “very fashionable furniture” in the mind of his contemporaries “a bit ashamed to have it about the house”, and that its historicity was not “of the same kind as the New Testament”, he appeared to be far from discarding its beauty, or, to use his words again, its “story-value” as “mental nourishment8”.
7If Niggle’s terrestrial and eschatological journey focuses on his endeavor to what could be seen as the process of “regaining” Paradise, Candide’s peregrinations start with a strong reminder of man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This young illegitimate nephew of a powerful German Baron leads a peaceful and carefree life in his uncle’s castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westfallia until he is banished for having kissed his uncle’s daughter Cunegonde behind a screen. Although devastated, Candide leaves this ephemeral earthly paradise, still imbued with hope, mainly owing to the teaching of his Leibnizian preceptor, Dr Pangloss, who claims that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
8Candide’s exile—a sequence of flights from dangers and disasters—leads him through a multitude of countries (from Europe to South America and back to Europe), each highlighting aspects of human and social evil—some clearly echoing Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers’ Travels (originally published in 1726) and others, the literalistic attitude of Councillor Tompkins in Niggle’s materialistic society. He tries to hold on to his tutor’s optimistic philosophy although reality unceasingly points to another direction9.
9There are no less than ten gardens in Voltaire’s tale, all representing flawed social organizations and at the same time all illustrating quests for happiness. Some prove to be illusory, unreal paradises like Eldorado with its “fountains of spring water, those of rose water, those of liqueurs drawn from sugar-cane, incessantly flowing into the great squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stone, which gave off a delicious fragrancy like that of cloves and cinnamon10”. Like the homely houses where Bilbo, Frodo and their companions were allowed to rest in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Eldorado can only be a transitory harbor. Candide still has a long way to go and a lot to learn before he can settle and start his own garden. One of the benefits he reaps in this model utopian society is the idyllic vision of the garden (which prefigures his own), i.e. “cultivated as much for pleasure as for necessity. On all sides the useful was also the beautiful”, an eloquent synthesis of Parish’s and Niggle’s aspirations, both essential to life11.
10The last garden—tended by Candide and his companions—bears some resonance of paradise in so far as the protagonists have found a way of life in keeping with their aspirations and they harvest “plentiful crops”. In Candide’s garden everyone discovers the virtue and the value of work. Each contributes to the well-being of the community according to their own talents and abilities. Even Cunegonde, who has become ugly, can participate in the “laudable design” by becoming an excellent pastry cook. Like the two protagonists in Leaf by Niggle at one stage of their eschatological journey, “the entire group finds happiness in cooperative labor12”.
11At the end of the tale, Pangloss remarks that Candide might not be sitting “here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts” if he had not been through all these ordeals and had made different choices13. If we consider the beginning and the end of Candide’s journey, it appears that, by trying to make sense of what was happening to him, by sifting the truth from all the theories he came across and by making compromises and above all sacrifices, he was always cultivating his internal garden. In Tolkien’s tale, Niggle’s determination to make the most of his artistic gift14—tempered by sacrifice one rainy day—triggered the redeeming process allowing the “coming ‘home’ to his painting15”. Both Candide and Niggle were indeed attending to the weeding, digging and harrowing that are necessary to obtain a fertile soil and reap the benefits of their efforts. And in spite of Panglos’s linear and often absurd ways of justifying optimism16, the series of “eucatastrophes17” at the end of Voltaire’s story points indeed in that direction, or at least points to the hope that “all is well”, although we cannot always see why it is so today.
12Voltaire scholars, Georges Pelissier (1852-1918) and William F. Bottiglia (1912-2005), both identify a reflection of the author’s outlook on life in Candide’s trajectory: “As always with Voltaire, the goal is a return to common sense; the middle course, the Golden Mean; neither optimistic, nor pessimistic extremes, but an equilibrating meliorism18.” Such seems to be the meaning of these famous lines from his poem (1756) on the earthquake catastrophe in Lisboa (1755):
One day everything will be fine,
That is our hope.
Everything is fine today,
That is our illusion19.
13Tolkien’s tale is a good illustration of Candide’s “practical precept” and Voltaire’s “equilibrating meliorism”. Niggle, the artist, and Parish, the “potato grower20”, are “obsessed” with their figurative or literal “gardening”, sometimes to the detriment of mutual consideration. Niggle, who shares many traits with Candide21 (innocence, honesty, kindness, simplicity), has but one thing in mind: spend all his time painting. His most disturbing fear is to find himself obliged to embark on his long journey (seemingly death) without having finished his favorite picture: “It [Niggle’s picture] had begun with a leaf caught in the wind, and it became a tree; and the tree grew […]. Strange birds came and settled on the twigs and had to be attended to. Then all around the Tree, and behind it, a country began to open out22.”
14The picture has grown to such an extent that he eventually needs a ladder to reach the top of the canvas. Interestingly, the ladder often symbolizes “the passage from one plane to another”, “communication between heaven and earth with a two-way traffic of the ascent of man and the descent of the divinity23”. In Christian mythology there used to be a ladder between heaven and earth in Eden, but it was lost at the Fall, and communication between God and man was interrupted. The ladder not only represents access to reality but also “going from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality24”.
15Niggle’s ascent to the heights of his canvass clearly mirrors his desire to move higher and to transcend the drabness of everyday life through his art. The components of his picture reveal his deepest aspirations. The leaf often symbolizes fertility, growth, renewal, hope25. Likewise the tree often represents “dynamic life26”, a most fitting element as Niggle devotes all his energy laboring at perfecting his internal garden.
16With its multiple branches and its leaves reborn each spring, the tree is also linked to proliferation, to the generating and regenerating processes of life. Through his painting, Niggle is a giver of life and the birds settling on the twigs add to the living celebration, like “a divine manifestation”. The tree also conjures up the image of the Tree of Life situated in the midst of Paradise27. It symbolizes the return to the original state of perfection and, again, emphasizes Niggle’s endeavor to perfect every detail, every single leaf, echoing Tolkien’s reflections on man’s exile (as quoted above). The tree can equally evoke the dualistic Tree of Knowledge, which also grows in Paradise, which may, in Niggle’s case, highlight his constant hesitations and temptations between his duties as a “citizen” which he regards as hindrances, and his burning desire to develop his gift and make it flourish.
17Thus although Niggle never loses sight of his objective (in spite of his lack of discipline at times), everyday life often has the unpleasant habit of tearing him away from cultivating his internal garden. His flow of inspiration is thus unceasingly interrupted by visitors knocking at the door or, as previously mentioned, by what he considers his moral and civic duties. He lives in a society distanced from nature, where flowers are regarded as “digestive and genital organs of plants28” and where his canvases are “put to better uses” such as patching up roofs damaged by gales or floods. Niggle as an artist is considered as having no practical or economic use and yet, as Councillor Tompkins bemoans, he could have been turned into “a serviceable cog of some sort” if his schoolmaster had done his job properly. The House Inspector’s incitation to tend to one’s neighbour could be acknowledged as perfectly laudable if we did not discover that Tompkins hypocritically visited Niggle and drank his tea while having an eye on the little painter’s house.
18Niggle is an embarrassment to the authorities in so far as he won’t conform. He lives in a materialistic society which is also progressively distancing itself from artistic, moral and spiritual values as testifies this dialogue between two Councillors:
“If I ran this country I should put him and his like to some job that they’re fit for, washing dishes in a communal kitchen or something, and I should see that they did it properly. Or I would put them away. I should have put him away long ago.
— Put him away? You mean you’d have made him start on the journey before his time?
— Yes, if you must use that meaningless old expression. Push him through the tunnel into the great Rubbish Heap: that’s what I mean29.”
19When time comes to embark on the long-dreaded journey, Niggle is taken to a workhouse (reminiscent of Purgatory) where he has to work mainly on time-management, a capacity which he seems to desperately lack. After being judged ready to leave, he is taken to a brighter place where he finds his Tree finished as “a true part of creation30”. However there is one element missing in his picture: man himself. It is only when his neighbour Parish joins him that Niggle can finish his painting as well as, or perhaps better than he had imagined it. He realizes that he needs Parish, the pragmatic gardener, to show him how to materialize his vision or his “glimpses” of the perfect tree: “There are lots of things about earth, plants, and trees that he knows and I don’t. This place cannot be left just as my private park. I need help and advice31.”
20In turn, after his stay in the work-house, Parish realizes that he needs Niggle’s artistic vision to transcend his down-to-earth daily routine in his vegetable garden and to continue discovering. Niggle’s art which he used to call “that daubing” has opened up new perspectives for him. They both realize that they are complementary and they start walking “about together, arm in arm”, a resonant echo of Candide’s little community. The grumbling on both parts has given way to an enriching collaboration and a new appreciation of life. At the end of the tale, we are told that “Niggle’s Parish in the Bay”—the name of Niggle’s painting—is even used as a therapy for those who need it and it seems to work wonders32.
21The invigorating outcome of Niggle and Parish’s harmonious and fruitful collaboration highlights the relevance of complementarity and mutual understanding and stands in a sharp contrast with the despotic attitude of Niggle’s ruling authorities. This particular aspect of the tale brings us naturally, on the one hand, to Voltaire’s vision of art which he regarded as a factor of grandeur and happiness in society—he devoted part of his Philosophical Letters to the utility of art—and, on the other hand, to his life-long battle for freedom and toleration (in all their forms). Like Candide, Voltaire spent most of his life “in exile” and in fine bought Ferney (1759), a big estate (next to the Swiss border), where he spent the last twenty years of his life literally and figuratively “cultivating his garden”.
22Like Tolkien with his life-long mythology, the fruit of Voltaire’s labor turned plentiful, useful and inspiring. As a prolific philosopher and writer, Voltaire produced works in almost all literary genres denouncing “the violence of all human evils justified by the institutions or by the law33”, in other words denouncing all human attitudes that enslave man and prevent him from cultivating his own garden. In 1726 he himself had to flee to England to escape imprisonment at the Bastille—without a trial—for having responded to a nobleman’s insult. In 1765 he demanded the review of the case of Jean Calas, condemned to death for having supposedly hanged his own son. Voltaire’s intervention led to the reversal of Calas’ conviction on the basis of anti-Huguenot prejudice. This case renewed Voltaire’s inspiration to fight for any form of toleration (political, social, religious, etc.), hence his Treatise on Tolerance published in 1763, in which he wrote34: “May all men remember that they are brothers! May they hold in horror tyranny exerted over souls, just as they loathe the brigandage which forcibly seizes the fruits of labor and peaceful industry35!”
23It seems that Ferney was no refuge cut off from the rest of the world; it was open to visitors and guests and turned out to be a fertile land which benefited the surrounding community (in a way echoing the therapeutic effect of “Niggle’s Parish in the Bay”). In one of his letters, the “Patriarch of Ferney” described the development of his new home-town in these (perhaps not very modest) terms:
“In few years, what used to be the den of forty savages has become an opulent little town, with its twelve hundred useful inhabitants, its physicians, its men of wisdom whose hands are guided by their minds. Had they been subjected to ridiculous laws invented to oppress art, this town would still be a repulsive wilderness, inhabited by bears from the Alps or the Jura36.”
24It is noteworthy that Candide’s precept is not “One must cultivate one’s garden” but “We must cultivate our garden”, which takes into account our common ground, i.e. the earth37. Everybody is seemingly invited to cultivate their own garden according to their talents and capacities—whether they be artistic like Niggle, practical and economic like Parish, intellectual like Voltaire and Tolkien, etc.—and if the job is well done, it may contribute to individual and universal progress, both materially and morally. Voltaire was aware of this principle as he expressed his disagreement with the French philosopher Pascal (1623-1662) who thought that we were born unjust38, for we all have a tendency to think about our own personal interest. On the contrary, said Voltaire, in one of his Philosophical Letters:
“That is perfectly in order. It is as impossible for a society to be formed and to subsist without self-esteem as it would be to make children without concupiscence or to think of feeding oneself without appetite, etc. It is love of self that encourages love of others; it is through our mutual needs that we are useful to the human race. That is the foundation of all commerce, the eternal link between men. Without it not a single art would have been invented, no society of ten people formed39.”
25These words echo the following statement of the Scottish philosopher and economist, Adam Smith, whom Voltaire met when he came to France (1764): “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest40.” However Adam Smith was aware that, in a larger context, such considerations could lead to dangerous egotistism and liberalism. Again it is always a question of returning “to common sense; the middle course, the Golden Mean”.
26The French poet Victor Hugo (1802-1885), who was a great admirer of the enlightenment philosopher, once said: “In Voltaire, equilibrium always re-establishes itself ultimately41.” Without a doubt by cultivating his own garden, Voltaire contributed to the fertility of many others if one can go by what the crowd chanted on March 30, 1778, when he came to Paris to see the performance of his last play Irene: “Let us honor the philosopher who teaches us to think42.”
27Such words of praise could have been addressed to J. R. R. Tolkien if we take into account the multiple seeds of “applicability43” he planted in his “internal garden”—as testified by his world-wide popularity and the growing academic interest in (and respect for) his Legendarium. And yet, like Niggle, the Oxford Professor had to swim against the current at times to preserve his passion for he was often accused of neglecting his purely academic garden and of favoring instead what his colleagues described as “unprofessional trifles44.”
28Like Niggle, Tolkien feared to embark on his final journey without having had the time to complete what he called his “internal tree”, the elaboration of his mythology45. Indeed Tolkien confessed to being himself a “natural niggler46” “given his habit of drastic rewriting47” and to sometimes lacking discipline and method (although, like Niggle, his flow of inspiration often seemed to be interrupted by domestic hindrances, visitors, etc.). Hence Tom Shippey’s statements on Leaf by Niggle:
“One could say that the whole tale expresses both Tolkien’s self-accusation and self-justification, and that its solution in Heaven lies in Niggle and Parish, the creative and the practical aspects of Tolkien himself, learning to work together48.”
“It is attractive to see Niggle and Parish as a ‘bifurcation’, as two aspects of Tolkien’s own personality which he wished he could combine: the one creative, irresponsible without ties […], the other scholarly, earthbound, practical, immediately productive49.”
29As part of his “Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford”, Professor Tolkien warned his audience against excessive academic partisanship and misology—faction fighting being one way (one could say) of preventing students from cultivating their own gardens.
30His argument clearly echoed what Voltaire had struggled to point out in other fields: namely thrusting “down the throats of the young, as a pill” what is considered by bigoted academics as “wares” “necessary to salvation” “the more efficacious, the nastier it tastes50”. It seemed that students risked being dissuaded from their natural bents in order to feed the academic “sausage-machine” as part of a “planned economy51”. He was referring to the “war” waged at Oxford between proponents of either Language or Literature, “each trying to grab more of the candidates’ time, whatever the candidates might think52”, instead of working together, arm in arm, like Niggle and Parish. These were certainly strong words but one can easily imagine what Tolkien himself would have thought if a major change in the curriculum (to the detriment of Language and Philology) had occurred when he was a student and already working on his Legendarium which he later qualified as “fundamentally linguistic in inspiration53”.
31Whatever the details of the debate between Lang and Lit, Tolkien, just like Voltaire two centuries earlier, voiced his claim to complementarity, mutual respect and understanding, without which conflict is inevitable. Just as Voltaire celebrated work—intelligent and free work—which contributes to man’s dignity, Tolkien thus denounced institutional despotism as being an obstacle to personal fulfillment.
32In sum, both authors clearly epitomized (albeit in different words and fashions) the necessity of metaphorically cultivating our garden. They also expressed their concern about certain facets of society, which all too often it seems, follow different agendas and therefore condemn, or seek to limit, people’s freedom. It is also noteworthy that, contrary to Niggle’s last leaf (torn from his painting) which disappeared in a fire at the end of the tale, both of these authors’ works continue to enrich the soil of many gardens.
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Notes de bas de page
1Tolkien J. R. R., Tree and Leaf, Smith of Wootton Major, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, London, Allen and Unwin, 1975 [1964], p. 25.
2Ibid., p. 25-26. See the notion of “applicability” dear to Tolkien as expressed in the foreword of The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien valued the “varied applicability” of a story “to the thought and experience of readers” therefore respecting the readers’ freedom, as opposed to allegory which reveals “the purposed domination of the author”.
3Voltaire, Candide, New York, Boni & Liveright Inc., 1918, XXX, p. 113. All the translations from the French in this paper are mine except for the quotations from Candide (see Bibliography for the reference to the English version).
4The Holy Bible, Melbourne, Nelson, 1966, Genesis, 2: 15.
5Van Zuylen Gabrielle, Tous les jardins du monde, Paris, Gallimard, 1994, back cover.
6Carpenter Humphrey (ed.), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981, p. 110.
7Shippey Tom, The Road to Middle-Earth, London, Harper Collins, 1992 [1982], p. 258.
8Carpenter Humphrey (ed.), The Letters…, op. cit., p. 109.
9The unfolding of events seems to justify the pessimistic outlook of Martin, a cynical Manichean scholar who travels with Candide after their meeting in Suriname (on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America).
10Voltaire, Candide, op. cit., XVIII, p. 61. The episode of Eldorado acts as a pivot in Candide’s journey: from then on, he is no longer passive nor so much tossed around by the wistful turns of events. He becomes an actor and is no longer taken in by the false Edens he visits such as the gardens “laid out with taste” and “adorned with fine marble statues” in the palace of the noble Signor Pococurante who turns out to be blasé and critical of everything (ibid., p. 92).
11Ibid., p. 54.
12Bottiglia William F., “Candide’s Garden”, PMLA, vol. 66, no 5, September 1951, p. 728.
13Voltaire, Candide, op. cit., XXX, p. 114. Pangloss’ facetious comment may remind a Tolkien reader of the Queen of Tol Eressëa’s more solemn statement about the Eldar (the Elves of the Great Journey) in The Book of Lost Tales (Part One, p. 117): “Maybe indeed had the Gods decided otherwise the world had been a fairer place now and the Eldar a happier folk, but never would they have achieved such glory, knowledge, and beauty…”
14See the parable of the talent, Matthew 25: 14-30; Luke 19: 12-28.
15Chance Nitzsche Jane, Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England, Kentucky, The University of Kentucky Press, 2001, p. 97. One wet and windy day Niggle reluctantly sacrificed his painting by cycling both to the doctor’s and the builder’s to bring assistance to his neighbour following a gale. The latter’s wife was ill and their roof needed patching. As he was riding his bicycle “he had a sinking feeling in his heart, a sort of fear” that he would never have the opportunity to finish his picture (Tree and Leaf, op. cit., p. 85). Owing to the bad weather Niggle caught a chill, which eventually triggered his departure for the “journey” (i.e. death).
16We are told that: “Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron’s castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.” “It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles—thus we have spectacles. Legs are visibly designed for stockings—and we have stockings. Stones were made to be hewn, and to construct castles—therefore my lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Pigs were made to be eaten—therefore we eat pork all the year round. Consequently they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said all is for the best” (Candide, op. cit., I, p. 5).
17The word “eucatastrophe” was coined by Tolkien to refer to the “sudden joyous ‘turn’” of events, the “miraculous grace”, the “good catastrophe”, Tolkien J. R. R., Tree and Leaf, op. cit., p. 68.
18Pellissier Georges, Voltaire philosophe, Paris, Armand Colin, 1908, p. 51. Bottiglia William F., “Candide’s Garden”, op. cit., p. 725.
19Maurice Jean, Voltaire: Candide, Paris, Gallimard, 1993, p. 33.
20Chism Christine, “Middle-Earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan Nation: Myth and History in World War II”, in Chance Jane (ed.), Tolkien the Medievalist, London, Routledge, 2003, p. 69.
21At the very beginning of the tale we can read the following description of Candide: “His countenance was a true picture of his soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide” (Candide, op. cit., I, p. 4).
22Tolkien J. R. R., Tree and Leaf, op. cit., p. 81.
23Cooper Jean C., An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, London, Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 94. Cf. Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28: 12-15 and John 1: 51.
24Cooper Jean C., An Illustrated Encyclopaedia…, op. cit.
25Ibid., p. 96.
26Ibid., p. 176.
27Chance Nitzsche Jane, Tolkien’s Art…, op. cit., p. 41.
28Tolkien J. R. R., Tree and Leaf, op. cit., p. 100-101.
29Ibid., p. 100.
30Carpenter Humphrey, J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography, London, Allen and Unwin, 1978 [1977], p. 200.
31Tolkien J. R. R., Tree and Leaf, op. cit., p. 96.
32Ibid., p. 102.
33Gaillard Paul, Candide, Voltaire: analyse critique, Paris, Hatier, 1972, p. 48.
34Voltaire, Traité sur la Tolérance, Paris, Flammarion, 1989, p. 142.
35These words were addressed as a prayer to God on the occasion of the death of Jean Calas (chapter XXIII).
36Guislain Gilbert and Tafanelli Charles, Panorama d’un auteur: Voltaire, Levallois-Perret, Studyrama, 2005, p. 259.
37Sauvage Pierre, “‘Il faut cultiver notre jardin’: essai d’interprétation du chapitre 30”, in Fenaux Jean-Paul (ed.), Candide de Voltaire, Paris, Ellipses, 1982, p. 97.
38“We are born unjust, for everybody tends to themselves. That is against all order. We must work for the general good, and the inclination towards self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in government, in economy, etc.”
39Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1964, p. 168.
40Smith Adam, The Wealth of Nations, New York, Arlington House, 1965 [1776], p. 13.
41Adams Robert M., Candide: Voltaire, New York, Norton & Company, 1991, p. 187.
42Gaillard Paul, Candide, Voltaire…, op. cit., p. 50.
43See the second footnote above.
44Carpenter Humphrey (ed.), The Letters…, op. cit., p. 278.
45Tolkien’s concern about the completion of his mythology can also parallel Voltaire’s wish to fulfill his contribution to a mammoth Encyclopedia reflecting the thought of the Enlightenment (published in 28 volumes between 1751 and 1772). As Bottiglia points out: “Voltaire considered the metaphor of the garden particularly applicable to the world of the Encyclopaedists, and as such interchangeable with the Biblical figure of the vineyard, for theirs was a sacred mission” (Bottiglia William F., “Candide’s Garden”, op. cit., p. 733)
46Carpenter Humphrey (ed.), The Letters…, op. cit., p. 313.
47Carpenter Humphrey, J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography, op. cit., p. 241.
48Shippey Tom, The Road to Middle-Earth, op. cit., p. 41.
49Shippey Tom, Tolkien: Author of the Century, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002 [2000], p. 274.
50Tolkien John Ronald Reuel, The Monsters and the Critics, op. cit., p. 225.
51Ibid., p. 226 and 227.
52Ibid., p. 231.
53Carpenter Humphrey (ed.), The Letters…, op. cit., p. 219.
Auteur
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Annie Birks
Maître de conférences (CNU 11) à l’université catholique de l’Ouest (Angers) où elle enseigne principalement la littérature anglaise. Depuis l’obtention de son doctorat à La Sorbonne sur « La rétribution dans l’œuvre de J. R. R. Tolkien », sous la direction de Leo Carruthers, elle publie régulièrement des articles sur cet auteur et a coordonné le no 34 des Cahiers du CIRHiLL : « Étymologie et traduction », Paris, L’Harmattan, 2011. Elle a également contribué au Dictionnaire Tolkien, publié aux Éditions CNRS, 2012, sous la direction de Vincent Ferré, ainsi qu’à l’élaboration d’un dictionnaire de citations, en tant que référente pour l’anglais, Figures et pointes stylistiques novatrices en langue allemande, anglaise, espagnole et leur traduction française, publié par l’université de Valladolid (Soria), Espagne, 2016, sous la direction de Daniel Lévêque. Elle est intégrée au CIRPaLL (EA 7457) ; elle est membre de la Société des anglicistes de l’enseignement supérieur (SAES) et de la Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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