Tag Archives: voltaire
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God Is a Comedian

From today’s Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of Voltaire, (books by this author) the man who helped spark the Enlightenment in France, born François-Marie Arouet in Paris (1694). He was a well-known playwright and poet. He spent most of his late life in exile, and he wrote most of his work from England. In the [...]

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Boredom, Vice, and Poverty

Boredom, Vice, and Poverty

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
–Alexander Pope, from Essay on Man, IV.281-294
Alexander Pope, a poet and catholic, betrays his neoclassicist longing for a universe [...]

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