Candide oder der Optimismus

To the unsuspecting young Candide, the small Westphalian castle where he spent his childhood appears to be a paradisiacal and perfect place to live, the best of all possible places. Unfortunately he commits - in all innocence - the crime of kissing Kunigunde, the appetizing daughter of the house, and is chased away from his childhood paradise with kicks in the butt. Now he is embarking on a journey that will take him all over Europe and South America, all the way to the utopian Eldorado. A chain of adventurous experiences, war and the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, shipwreck and earthquake, sudden wealth and just as sudden loss, the hero has to endure until he surprisingly meets Cunegund and his friends in Constantinople. Hidden in the costume of the most amusing entertainment is one of the most astute philosophical satires ever written against the optimism of the Enlightenment. With irony and sarcastic wit Voltaire (1694-1778) takes Leibniz's doctrine of "all is well" to the point of absurdity, for it takes a series of almost fatal adventures before the credulous Candide, urged to constant optimism by his teacher Pangloss, realizes how much of this world is in a mess.