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Voltaire Enlightenment Thinker

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Ideas such as religious freedom, free trade, and social liberties earned Voltaire the label of “enlightenment thinker” along with Locke, Montesquieu, and Descartes. Though his father disapproved along with the government, Voltaire continue writing and expressing his opinions. Various types of work exhibit his ideas.
Voltaire's father strongly disapproved of his passion for writing. Finding out that his son lied about working as a notary in Paris and instead pursued his dream of writing, he forced him into law (“Voltaire - Biography.”). Then his father “found him employment as the secretary of the French ambassador in the Netherlands where Voltaire fell in love with a French protestant refugee and was once more forced by his father to return to Paris” (“Voltaire - …show more content…

Writings of Voltaire often express his views on censorship, religious freedom, free trade, civil liberties, and social reform (“Voltaire - Biography.”). Major works of Voltaire “fall into four categories: poetry, plays, historical works and philosophical works” (“Bio.Com.”). Best known works of his include his play, Oedipus, which he followed with a string of tragedies, notably Mariamne (“Bio.Com.”). Voltaire’s historical writings include “The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations(1756)... a unique approach to tracing the progression of world civilization by focusing on social history and the arts” (“Bio.Com.”). Philosophical works of Voltaire include “short stories Micromégas (1752) and Plato's Dream (1756), along with his famed satirical novella Candide (1759)” (“Bio.Com.”). Also “(i)n 1764, he published another of his most important philosophical works, Dictionnaire philosophique, an encyclopedic dictionary embracing the concepts of Enlightenment and rejecting the ideas of the Roman Catholic Church” (“Bio.Com.”). Voltaire expressed his ideas in a variety of writings, unafraid of the

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