Mame Bove

Divergent to the norms of Classic literature, writers of the Enlightenment attempted to write in a way that contradicted human morality. The writings of the Enlightenment awakened the idea of a modern paganism and the emancipation from Classical thinking and Christian culture. German-born philosopher, Peter Gay, discusses Candide in his analysis The Enlightenment to which he concludes: “The World in which Candide moves is wholly disenchanted. I have called Candide a morality tale; I should add that it is a secular morality tale. There are no harpies here, no gorgons; the causes that move the story are within nature. Some, like the earthquake, are inexplicable but no more miraculous for that. Others find their explanations in social institutions or in human nature…” (200). This idea brings on the thought of religious rhetoric versus reasoning. In the years following the ground-breaking novel Candide, Voltaire and the era of the Enlightenment play an influential role for authors to come.

In Candide, Voltaire expresses the corruption of the morality of human beings in a mockery of Christianity and philosophical optimism. The characters in Candide uphold the notion that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” (375) which is an idea that is believed by philosophical optimists. However, several Enlightenment ideals abide by the central Biblical idea of the Fall of Man—that human suffering is the consequence of human sin. Writing about the depravity of men, Voltaire makes the connection of how those living in the Enlightenment era tried to escape from the heretical Roman Catholics, and hold fast to the liberating idea of a world-view based on secular humanity.

With the influences of the Enlightenment, author ...

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...sire for affection, as he portrays the protagonist as being consumed with this desire. In similarity to what the editors said in the narrative of Madame Bovary, “The Love Song” “conveys a sense of inexorable determinism, of the vanity of dreaming…It conveys a sense of despair, of alienation…” (1035). The poem is written using the Modernistic approach, due to the physical and spiritual loneliness, and alienation of J. Alfred Prufrock; however, implores the use of secular prose found in writings of the Enlightenment . In explaining the desires and dreams of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot writes his poem with much hyperbole with the excessive details of women, desire, and vanity. He is obsessed with style and romantic whims, which is not dissimilar to the ideas Flaubert used for his protagonist in Madame Bovary, or the whimsical details Voltaire transcribes in Candide.