“TOCANDO DESAFINADO”

CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE AS CARTAS FILOSÓFICAS E A EXPERIÊNCIA DE VOLTAIRE COMO EXILADO

Abstract

This article proposes a specific interpretation of Voltaire’s Lettres Philosophiques, published in 1734 and here observed under the light of the author’s experience as an exiled intellectual. Although it is not our intention to assign to the text and its author the weight of intellectuals such as Joyce and Victor Hugo (who, after the trauma of displacement, find in the process of writing not only the consolidation of a new identity, but of a new commitment), the fact remains that Voltaire’s experience in England significantly altered not only his world view, but his means of expressing it textually. In such sense, the publication of the Lettres led to an unprecedented frenzy in the context of XVIIIth century France, presenting an acidity and a specific from of critic that would make Voltaire famous throughout the second half of his century. The experience of the exile, therefore, if not essential to the understanding of his poetics, surely gives them a intelligibility frequently ignored by the specialized bibliography.