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Voltaire’S Concept Of Enlightened Eloquence, Thomas M. Carr Jr.

French Language and Literature Papers

Near the beginning and end of his Lettres philosophiques (1734), his first major text promoting the principles of enlightenment, Voltaire gave examples of two very different kinds of eloquence. In the third letter on the Quakers, he pictured George Fox converting his jailers with his inspired preaching. In the last letter, he praised the eloquence of Pascal before he attempted a refutation of the Pensées, calling Pascal’s projected apology for Christianity “un livre plein de paralogismes éloquents et de faussetés admirablement déduites.” Each is representative of a brand of eloquence Voltaire found objectionable. The first kind, appealing chiefly to …