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VoltaireThe Lisbon Earthquake
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1756A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context
The Lisbon earthquake, which occurred on the morning of November 1, 1755, was one of the most severe and significant natural disasters in Western European history. The event consisted of two large tremors and a resulting tidal wave that hit Lisbon shortly afterward. Though there is no way of knowing how strong the earthquake was, between 20,000 and 60,000 people were estimated dead (about 8-20% of the current population of Lisbon) and aftershocks were said to have been felt as far away as Finland.
When the earthquake occurred, Europe was in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment, a cultural movement defined by a belief in reason, rationality, and sensory evidence. Some of the European intelligentsia, as a result, began to express doubt about systems of knowing (epistemologies) that were not founded in reason or material evidence. “The Lisbon Earthquake” makes direct reference to this when the speaker states “To nature we apply for truth in vain” (Line 181). True to Enlightenment values, Voltaire’s poem is, at times, hyper-focused on finding some logical reasoning in the disaster’s devastation. Reason, after all, was seen as an essential measure of truth—so much so that Voltaire’s speaker, in the poem, expects God to answer to it.
This emphasis on reason, and particularly on an ideal reason that trumps human and divine hierarchies, was also essential in the French Revolution. In 1789, only about ten years after Voltaire’s death, the Bastille was stormed, beginning a revolution that would eventually overthrow the French monarchy in favor of a liberal democracy.
Philosophical Context
“The Lisbon Earthquake” engages with a number of contemporary philosophical ideas and debates. When Voltaire wrote the poem, philosophy, as a genre of writing, had not taken on strict formal rules. Writings that were intended to participate in philosophical discourse, then, took on a variety of forms, including poetry, dialogues, aphorisms, and treatises.
The speaker’s reference to philosophers such as Plato, Epicurus, Bayle, and Leibniz are a clear indication that the work is meant to be understood as a part of a larger philosophical discussion (195, 210, 211, 187). In particular, the poem attempts to find a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil. Though the problem has been phrased in a number of ways, its basic construction goes back to Epicurus. The original French text of Voltaire’s poem also incorporates a quotation from Saint Augustine, who struggled in his writings with the problem of evil.
Leibniz and Pope argue from a different perspective than Epicurus. For them, the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent God is given. An omnipotent, benevolent God, they effectively argue, would not allow evil to exist in the world, and therefore evil does not exist, only misunderstanding. Variations on the argument state that evil does exist but is fundamentally essential. This argument is often summed up as Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” theory, where he states that we live in the best of all possible worlds. This idea is mocked more explicitly by Voltaire in Candide. The novel contains the comic character of Pangloss (Latin for “all talk”) who is an adherent of Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” theory and is led astray by his blind adherence to the maxim.
