| 翻訳と辞書 |
| Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ： ウィキペディア英語版 |
Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne
The Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (''Poem on the Lisbon Disaster'') is a poem in French composed by Voltaire as a response to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. It is widely regarded as an introduction to Voltaire's later acclaimed work ''Candide'' and his view on the problem of evil. The 180-line poem was composed in December 1755 and published in 1756. It is considered one of the most savage literary attacks on Optimism.〔(Candide: Book Summary and Study Guide )〕
==Background==
The earthquake on 1 November 1755 had completely devastated Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The city was reduced to ruins, and between 10,000 to 60,000 people were killed.〔〔Scott, p. 208.〕 One of the most destructive earthquakes in history, the event had a major effect on the cultural consciousness of much of Europe. Voltaire was one of many philosophers, theologians and intellectuals to be deeply affected by the disaster.〔 Catholics attempted to explain the disaster as God's wrath, invited by the sinfulness of the people of Portugal and the presence of Protestants and Jesuits; Protestants blamed the Portuguese for being Catholic, and were thus punished by God.
Polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and poet Alexander Pope were both famous for developing a system of thought known as philosophical optimism in an attempt to reconcile a loving Christian God with the logical problem of evil (made evident in disasters such as Lisbon). The phrase ''"what is, is right"'' coined by Alexander Pope in his An Essay on Man, and Leibniz' affirmation that ''"we live in the best of all possible worlds"'', provoked a hostile response from Voltaire. He railed against what he perceived as overly complex philosophizing which served only to demean humanity and ultimately lead to fatalism.
Voltaire's philosophical pessimism and deism, further bolstered by the earthquake, argued that philosophical optimism and the notion that ''"what is, is right"'' was empty philosophy based speculation. Due to the prevalence of perceived evil, Voltaire was convinced that there could not possibly exist a benign, all-loving, or intervening deity who aggrandized the virtuous and punished the sinful. He asserted instead that the disaster revealed the weak, helpless, and ignorant nature of humankind. For Voltaire, people might well hope for a happier state, but that was the logical limit of their optimism.〔
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
■ウィキペディアで「Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne」の詳細全文を読む
スポンサード リンク
| 翻訳と辞書 : 翻訳のためのインターネットリソース |
Copyright(C) kotoba.ne.jp 1997-2016. All Rights Reserved.
|
|