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Sémiramis

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François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. Her eyes are sunk in darkness: help the king And guard his life. Learn from her sad example, That heaven is witness to our secret crimes: The higher is the criminal, remember, The gods inflict the greater punishment; Kings, tremble on your thrones, and fear their justice.

52 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1946

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Voltaire

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Complete works (1880) : https://archive.org/details/oeuvresco...

In 1694, Age of Enlightenment leader Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris. Jesuit-educated, he began writing clever verses by the age of 12. He launched a lifelong, successful playwriting career in 1718, interrupted by imprisonment in the Bastille. Upon a second imprisonment, in which Francois adopted the pen name Voltaire, he was released after agreeing to move to London. There he wrote Lettres philosophiques (1733), which galvanized French reform. The book also satirized the religious teachings of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal, including Pascal's famed "wager" on God. Voltaire wrote: "The interest I have in believing a thing is not a proof of the existence of that thing." Voltaire's French publisher was sent to the Bastille and Voltaire had to escape from Paris again, as judges sentenced the book to be "torn and burned in the Palace." Voltaire spent a calm 16 years with his deistic mistress, Madame du Chatelet, in Lorraine. He met the 27 year old married mother when he was 39. In his memoirs, he wrote: "I found, in 1733, a young woman who thought as I did, and decided to spend several years in the country, cultivating her mind." He dedicated Traite de metaphysique to her. In it the Deist candidly rejected immortality and questioned belief in God. It was not published until the 1780s. Voltaire continued writing amusing but meaty philosophical plays and histories. After the earthquake that leveled Lisbon in 1755, in which 15,000 people perished and another 15,000 were wounded, Voltaire wrote Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (Poem on the Lisbon Disaster): "But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?"

Voltaire purchased a chateau in Geneva, where, among other works, he wrote Candide (1759). To avoid Calvinist persecution, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, where the wealthy writer lived for 18 years until his death. Voltaire began to openly challenge Christianity, calling it "the infamous thing." He wrote Frederick the Great: "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." Voltaire ended every letter to friends with "Ecrasez l'infame" (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). His pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) went after transubstantiation, miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, and the Christian God. Voltaire wrote that a true god "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough," or inspired "books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror." He also published excerpts of Testament of the Abbe Meslier, by an atheist priest, in Holland, which advanced the Enlightenment. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary was published in 1764 without his name. Although the first edition immediately sold out, Geneva officials, followed by Dutch and Parisian, had the books burned. It was published in 1769 as two large volumes. Voltaire campaigned fiercely against civil atrocities in the name of religion, writing pamphlets and commentaries about the barbaric execution of a Huguenot trader, who was first broken at the wheel, then burned at the stake, in 1762. Voltaire's campaign for justice and restitution ended with a posthumous retrial in 1765, during which 40 Parisian judges declared the defendant innocent. Voltaire urgently tried to save the life of Chevalier de la Barre, a 19 year old sentenced to death for blasphemy for failing to remove his hat during a religious procession. In 1766, Chevalier was beheaded after being tortured, then his body was burned, along with a copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. Voltaire's statue at the Pantheon was melted down during Nazi occupation. D. 1778.

Voltaire (1694-1778), pseudónimo de François-

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Profile Image for Emelie.
227 reviews52 followers
October 7, 2021
‘’Believe a heart by love enlightened, and by love inspired: I know the traitor’s rank envenomed hatred, marked how the trembling faction by his zeal revived; I pried into their secret councils, pretended to unite his cause with mine, and join our interests; I have looked into him, have wrested from his heart the fatal secret. Boldly he marches on, and hopes to pass unpunished: well he knows that none dare enter the Holy place (...)’’

Drama! Sémiramis är en tragedi i fem delar som utspelar sig intill Babylons hängande trädgårdar. Platsen refereras även ibland i annan litteratur, eller sammanhang, till just Drottning Semiramis hängande trädgårdar. Det sägs att hon ska ha haft en roll i dess konstruktion och uppbyggnad under sitt styre av det Babyloniska riket under 800-talet f.Kr. Det ska också sägas att just berättelsen (och legenden) om Semiramis i sin tur har sin grund hos den historiska Shammuramat, som var en Assyrisk drottning under 800-talet f.Kr (mycket spännande att läsa mer om!). Men hur som helst! Verket handlar om Sémiramis som har förgiftat sin make Ninos och tagit över tronen av Babylonien. I hennes närhet finner vi bland annat den maktlystna Assur (som redan haft ett finger eller två med i förgiftningen), krigsherren Arsaces, prinsessan Azema och prästen Oroes. Assur ämnar att ingå ett äktenskap (om än ett kärlekslöst) med Sémiramis för att styrka sin position i riket. Men Sémiramis faller istället för den unge Arsaces, som i sin tur är förälskad i Azema. (Drama!) Med tiden får Arsaces en uppenbarelse kring att han egentligen är Sémiramis och Ninos förlorade son - Ninias. (Ännu mer drama!) När fadern Ninos uppenbarar sig framför honom ber han att Arsaces ska hämnas de som mördade honom - först då kommer han bli sitt sanna jag (och rättmätig tronarvinge). Sémiramis kommer likväl till insikten om vem Arsaces egentligen är, och känslorna omformas till moderliga. Samtidigt befinner sig Assur på sin ständiga krigsstig med målet att eliminera allt som står i hans väg… En hel del hinner utspela sig i denna tragedi! Väldigt spännande att få ta del av! Tyckte om (även om texten i denna utgåva hamnade lite tokigt ibland :c)!🐇
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