Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our fortieth episode, we make our first foray across la Manche in order to recap Voltaire's satirical picaresque, Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759). In this episode, Daniel trots out his feeble/faible Franglais, Abby discerns a preoccupation with derrières lying at the bottom of an otherwise highly varied narrative, and both take a moment to lament with Voltaire that most oppressed group of the eighteenth-century world: philosophers.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode theme: Jean-Philippe Rameau, 'Gavotte and Variations' (1727), performed by Martha Goldstein.

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