Brief biography about voltaire
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The Life and Work of Voltaire, French Enlightenment Writer
Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778) was a writer and philosopher of the French Enlightenment period. He was an incredibly prolific writer, advocating for civil freedoms and criticizing major institutions such as the Catholic Church.
Fast Facts: Voltaire
- Full Name: François-Marie Arouet
- Occupation: Writer, poet, and philosopher
- Born: November 21, 1694 in Paris, France
- Died: May 30, 1778 in Paris, France
- Parents: François Arouet and Marie Marguerite Daumard
- Key Accomplishments: Voltaire published significant criticism of the French monarchy. His commentary on religious tolerance, historiographies, and civil liberties became a key component of Enlightenment thinking.
Early Life
Voltaire was the fifth child and fourth son of François Arouet and his wife Marie Marguerite Daumard. The Arouet family had already lost two sons, Armand-François and Robert, in infancy
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His life
Born in Paris into a wealthy bourgeois family, he was a brilliant pupil of the Jesuits. His rejection of his father’s attempts to guide him into a career in the law was sealed in 1718, when he invented a new name for himself: ‘de Voltaire’. Voltaire is an anagram of ‘Arouet l(e) j(eune)’ (in the 18th century, i and j, and u and v, were typographically interchangeable). The addition of the aristocratic preposition ‘de’ may be an early sign of his social ambition, but the play on the verb volter, to turn abruptly, evokes a playful or ‘volatile’ quality which foretells the quick style, pervasive humour and irony that make Voltaire such an important figure in the history of the Enlightenment.
In the same year that he coined his new name, Voltaire enjoyed his first major literary success when his tragedy Œdipe was staged by the Comédie Française. Meanwhile he was working on an epic poem which had as its protagonist Henri IV, the much-loved French monarch who brough
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1. The origins of his famous pen name are unclear.
Voltaire had a strained relationship with his father, who discouraged his literary aspirations and tried to force him into a legal career. Possibly to show his rejection of his father’s values, he dropped his family name and adopted the nom de plume “Voltaire” upon completing his first play in 1718.
Voltaire never explained the meaning of his pen name, so scholars can only speculate on its origins. The most popular theory maintains the name is an anagram of a certain Latinized spelling of “Arouet,” but others have claimed it was a reference to the name of a family chateau or a nod to the nickname “volontaire” (volunteer), which Voltaire may have been given as a sarcastic reference to his stubbornness.
Origins of the French Revolution
2. He was imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year.
Voltaire’s caustic wit first got him into trouble with the authorities in May 1716, when he was briefly exiled from Paris for compos