Voltaire: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Voltaire's Enlightenment was built from English empiricism, French skeptical erudition, and the salon-and-café culture of Paris — then rebuilt by everyone who came after him. This mix traces the books he absorbed, the operas he wrote words for, the rivals he sparred with, and the satirists who still work in his key.

The Kynda mix for Voltaire

• Key Influence · An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689). Voltaire's 1726-28 exile in England turned him into a propagandist for Locke. The Lettres philosophiques devote whole letters to Locke's account of the mind as shaped by experience, and to the scandalous suggestion that matter might think. Locke's empiricism and his Letter on Toleration supplied both the epistemology and the religious politics Voltaire spent fifty years popularising for French readers.medium
• Influencia Obscura · Dictionnaire historique et critique by Pierre Bayle (1697). Bayle's vast, footnote-swollen dictionary was the underground reservoir of Enlightenment doubt, and the formal model for Voltaire's own Dictionnaire philosophique: short alphabetical entries smuggling heresy past censors. Bayle's assault on providence and his defence of the erring conscience shaped Voltaire's tolerance arguments; few readers today know the book Voltaire's contemporaries called the arsenal.
• Local Roots · Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences by Denis Diderot (1751). Paris's café and salon network — Procope, the salon of Mme du Deffand, the booksellers of the Left Bank — bound Voltaire to the Encyclopédie project. He contributed articles on literature and history to the enterprise Diderot and d'Alembert steered through censorship, and the two men's correspondence maps the whole strategic geography of the French Enlightenment's publishing war.
• Beyond the Medium · Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1735). Voltaire was steeped in the Paris Opéra and wrote libretti himself, so Rameau's exoticist opéra-ballet belongs in his world: a spectacle staging Incas, Turks and Persians for the same public that read philosophical tales about virtuous foreigners. Voltaire admired Rameau's craft while grumbling about his temperament during their collaborations of the mid-1740s.
• Peer · De l'esprit des lois by Montesquieu (1748). The other great French philosophe of Voltaire's generation, and a rival more than an ally. Voltaire needled Montesquieu's climate theory and his aristocratic constitutionalism in later writings, yet shared his hostility to torture and religious coercion. Reading them together shows the Enlightenment as argument rather than consensus, with legal reform the common ground beneath the sniping.
• From the Canon · Candide, ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire (1759). Written after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Candide demolishes Leibnizian optimism through relentless episodic catastrophe — Inquisition, war, slavery in Surinam — before settling on the cultivation of one's garden. Published anonymously and promptly banned, it outsold and outlived everything else Voltaire wrote, and remains the compact model for philosophical satire in fiction.
• Key Collaborator · La Princesse de Navarre by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1745). For the wedding festivities of the Dauphin at Versailles, Voltaire supplied the libretto and Rameau the music of this comédie-ballet — the collaboration that helped earn Voltaire his court appointment as historiographer of France. The pair reworked material into Les Fêtes de Ramire the same year, an uneasy partnership between the age's sharpest writer and its greatest composer.
• Legacy · Candide by Leonard Bernstein (1956). Bernstein's operetta, with a book originally by Lillian Hellman and lyrics eventually shaped by Richard Wilbur and Stephen Sondheim, carries Voltaire's tale into Broadway idiom — and, in the McCarthy era, into an argument about American optimism and inquisition. 'Make Our Garden Grow' delivers the novella's closing line as a chorale, proof of the plot's durability as satire.

What influenced Voltaire

• Isaac Newton. Voltaire's scientific and philosophical work was influenced by Newton. (also via Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica) “a main source of inspiration for Voltaire were the years of his British exile, during which he had been strongly influenced by Newton's works” (Wikipedia)
• Dictionnaire historique et critique by Pierre Bayle (1697). Dictionnaire historique et critique (Pierre Bayle) — ghost for Voltaire “Voltaire called Bayle "the greatest dialectician to have ever written." The English translation of The Dictionary was identified by American President Thomas Jefferson to be among the one hundred foundational texts to form the first coll…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• William Shakespeare (1564). States Voltaire was influenced by Shakespeare during his English exile. “He was influenced by the writers of the time and developed an interest in English literature, especially Shakespeare” (Wikipedia)
• Socrates (-470). Describes Voltaire's literary/philosophical use of Socrates. “for Voltaire, the figure of Socrates represented a reason-based theist” (Wikipedia)
• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (John Locke) — titan for Voltaire “Although influenced by Socinian works such as the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, Voltaire's skeptical attitude to the Bible separated him from Unitarian theologians like Fausto Sozzini or even Biblical-political writers like John Locke.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Collège Louis-le-Grand. Voltaire was educated at this institution by Jesuit teachers. “He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric.” (Wikipedia)
• Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1686). Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle) — ghost for Voltaire “== Legacy == Fontenelle was a popular figure in the educated French society of his period, by holding a position of esteem comparable only to that of Voltaire.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Tartuffe by Molière (1664). Tartuffe (Molière) — titan for Voltaire “In pure literary criticism his principal work is the Commentaire sur Corneille, although he wrote many more similar works—sometimes (as in his Life and Notices of Molière) independently and sometimes as part of his Siècles.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton (1687). Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Isaac Newton) — titan for Voltaire “Voltaire may have been present at the funeral of Isaac Newton and met Newton's niece Catherine Conduitt.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth (1735). A Rake's Progress (William Hogarth) — culture for Voltaire (wikidata.org)
• Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1735). Les Indes galantes (Jean-Philippe Rameau) — culture for Voltaire “La Poupelinière's salon enabled Rameau to meet some of the leading cultural figures of the day, including Voltaire, who soon began collaborating with the composer.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Discourse on Universal History by Bossuet. Voltaire's historiographical approach was shaped by Bossuet's work.

Peers and kindred spirits

• Émilie du Châtelet (1706). Voltaire and du Châtelet collaborated on scientific study and experimentation. (also via Institutions de physique) “Together, they studied these books and performed scientific experiments at Cirey, including an attempt to determine the nature of fire.” (Wikipedia)
• la Loge des Neuf Sœurs. Voltaire became a member of this Masonic lodge shortly before his death. “On 4 April 1778, he attended la Loge des Neuf Sœurs in Paris, and became an Entered Apprentice Freemason.” (Wikipedia)
• Du contrat social by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762). Du contrat social (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) — peer for Voltaire “== Voltaire and Rousseau == Voltaire's junior contemporary Jean-Jacques Rousseau commented on how Voltaire's book Letters on the English played a great role in his intellectual development.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Voltaire socialized within the same literary circles as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu during his English exile. “Voltaire circulated throughout English high society, meeting Alexander Pope, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and many other members of the nobility and royalty.” (Wikipedia)
• John Gay. Voltaire socialized within the same literary circles as John Gay during his English exile. “Voltaire circulated throughout English high society, meeting Alexander Pope, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and many other members of the nobility and royalty.” (Wikipedia)
• Frederick the Great. Establishes a long correspondence and collaborative relationship between Voltaire and Frederick the Great. “In August 1736, Frederick the Great, then Crown Prince of Prussia and a great admirer of Voltaire, initiated a correspondence with him.” (Wikipedia)
• Alexander Pope. Voltaire socialized within the same literary circles as Alexander Pope during his English exile. “Voltaire circulated throughout English high society, meeting Alexander Pope, John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and many other members of the nobility and royalty.” (Wikipedia)
• Lettres persanes by Montesquieu (1721). Lettres persanes (Montesquieu) — geography for Voltaire “In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire endorses Montesquieu's criticism of the slave trade: "Montesquieu was almost always in error with the learned, because he was not learned, but he was almost always right against the fanatics and …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Institutions de physique by Émilie du Châtelet (1740). Institutions de physique (Émilie du Châtelet) — collaborator for Voltaire “=== Château de Cirey === In 1733, Voltaire met Émilie du Châtelet (Marquise du Châtelet), a mathematician and married mother of three, who was 12 years his junior and with whom he was to have an affair for 16 years.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• La Princesse de Navarre by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1745). La Princesse de Navarre (Jean-Philippe Rameau) — collaborator for Voltaire “La Poupelinière's salon enabled Rameau to meet some of the leading cultural figures of the day, including Voltaire, who soon began collaborating with the composer.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• De l'esprit des lois by Montesquieu (1748). De l'esprit des lois (Montesquieu) — peer for Voltaire “In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire endorses Montesquieu's criticism of the slave trade: "Montesquieu was almost always in error with the learned, because he was not learned, but he was almost always right against the fanatics and …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences by Denis Diderot (1751). Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences (Denis Diderot) — geography for Voltaire “Voltaire wrote an enthusiastic letter to Diderot commending the Lettre and stating that he had held Diderot in high regard for a long time, to which Diderot sent a warm response.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jonathan Swift. Voltaire and Swift share a literary distinction as early forerunners of science fiction.

Who Voltaire influenced

• Leonard Bernstein. Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Voltaire) — culture for Leonard Bernstein (via Candide, ou l'Optimisme, Candide) “Lillian Hellman originally brought Bernstein her idea of adapting Voltaire's novella.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Edward Gibbon (1737). Gibbon's historical thesis is said to have been influenced by Voltaire. “Voltaire was later deemed to influence Edward Gibbon in claiming that Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire in his book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (Wikipedia)
• Candide by Leonard Bernstein (1956). Candide (Leonard Bernstein) — legacy for Voltaire “Lillian Hellman originally brought Bernstein her idea of adapting Voltaire's novella.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain (1962). Letters from the Earth (Mark Twain) — legacy for Voltaire (openlibrary.org)