How Candide drew on On the Nature of Things
A documented line of influence: Voltaire demonstrably engaged Lucretius’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
On the Nature of Things
Lucretius · c. 55 BCE
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Candide
Voltaire · 1759
EnlightenmentRelevance
4/10
On Candide’s page
- Candide's famous last word — "cultivate our garden" — is the Epicurean ideal, the retreat to tending what's in front of you, transmitted down through Lucretius
- Voltaire prized On the Nature of Things and leaned on it in his quarrels with the Church
- Lucretius is the quiet philosophy underneath Voltaire's satire; reading him first names the garden Candide finally chooses
On On the Nature of Things’s page
- Voltaire read Lucretius and prized him — he found De rerum natura a useful weapon against the Church and ranked him among the great philosopher-poets
- The Epicurean garden Lucretius preserved is the one Voltaire reaches for at the close of Candide: "we must cultivate our garden"