Candide, Or The Optimist
Voltaire

Find here a scene in rehearsal, featuring Candide (played by James Onstade) and his love, Cunegonde (Cecilia Iole). In this excerpt, she disabuses him of some of his naivete by sharing how men have been abusing her. The satire meanwhile takes a jab at religious hypocrisy their day. Courtesy of Clarence Brown Theatre, U Tennessee, Knoxville.

Find here a scholarly summation of ideas in Candide in relation to good and evil, and speculation on how Voltaire would react to our 21st-century world were he alive today.