Micromegas

By Voltaire

L'immense correspondance de Voltaire ne contient pas un mot qui puisse faire connaître l'époque de la publication de Micromégas. L'édition que je crois l'originale est sans millésime et avec un titre gravé. L'abbé Trublet, dans ses Mémoires sur Fontenelle, n'hésite pas à dire que Micromégas est dirigé contre Fontenelle; mais il ne parle pas de la date de sa publication. J'ai donc conservé celle que donnent les éditions de Kehl.

• Language: Français
• Publisher: Interactive Media
• Release date: Jul 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911495369

Voltaire

Born in Paris in 1694, François-Marie Arouet, who would later go by the nom-de-plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment philosopher, poet, historian, and author. Voltaire’s writing was often controversial, and in 1715 he was sent into his first exile in Tulle after a writing a satirical piece about the Duke of Orleans, the Regent of France. It was during this time that he produced his first major work, the play Oedipus. Although allowed to return to Paris a year later, Voltaire’s writing continued to land him in trouble. He was jailed in the Bastille two more times and was exiled from Paris for a good portion of his life. Throughout these troubles, Voltaire continued to write, producing works of poetry, a number of plays, and some historical and political texts. His most famous work is the satirical novel Candide, and many of his plays, including Oedipus and Socrates, are still performed today. Voltaire died in 1778.

Book preview

VII.

PRÉFACE DE L’ÉDITEUR

L’immense correspondance de Voltaire ne contient pas un mot qui puisse faire connaître l’époque de la publication de Micromégas. L’édition que je crois l’originale est sans millésime et avec un titre gravé. L’abbé Trublet, dans ses Mémoires sur Fontenelle, n’hésite pas à dire que Micromégas est dirigé contre Fontenelle; mais il ne parle pas de la date de sa publication. J’ai donc conservé celle que donnent les éditions de Kehl (1752). Il existe cependant de Micromégas une édition portant la date de 1700. Cette date est-elle authentique? je n’oserais l’affirmer ; loin de là. J’ai donc suivi les éditions de Kehl, où Micromégas est précédé de l’Avertissement que voici :

Ce roman peut, être regardé comme une imitation d’un des voyages de Gulliver. II contient plusieurs allusions. Le nain dé Saturne est M. de Fontenelle. Malgré sa douceur, sa circonspection, sa philosophie, qui devait lui faire aimer celle de M. de Voltaire, il s’était lié avec les ennemis de ce grand homme, et avait paru partager, sinon leur haine, du moins leurs préventions. Il fut fort blessé du rôle qu’il jouait dans ce roman, et d’autant plus peut-être que la critique était juste, quoique sévère, et que les éloges qui s’y mêlaient y donnaient encore plus de poids. Le mot qui termine l’ouvrage n’adoucit point la blessure, et le bien qu’on dit du secrétaire de l’académie de Paris ne consola point M. de Fontenelle des plaisanteries qu’on se permettait sur celui de l’académie de Saturne.

Les notes sans signature, et qui sont indiquées par des lettres, sont de Voltaire.

Les notes signées d’un K sont des éditeurs de Kehl, MM. Condorcet et Decroix. Il est impossible de faire rigoureusement la part de chacun.

Les additions que j’ai faites aux notes de Voltaire ou aux notes des éditeurs de Kehl, en sont séparées par un —, et sont, comme mes notes, signées de l’initiale de mon nom.

BEUCHOT.

4 octobre 1829.

CHAPITRE I.

Voyage d’un habitant du monde de l’étoile Sirius dans la planète de Saturne.

Dans une de ces planètes qui tournent autour de l’étoile nommée Sirius il y avait un jeune homme de beaucoup d’esprit, que j’ai eu l’honneur de connaître dans le dernier voyage qu’il fit sur notre petite fourmilière; il s’appelait Micromégas[1], nom qui convient fort à tous les grands. Il avait

Reviews for Micromegas

[baswood · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

[Micromegas] - VoltairePublished in 1752 this short novella has now been claimed as the first/one of the first science fiction stories. It is in fact a satire on philosophical thought held at the dawn of the age of enlightenment. Micromegas inhabits a planet orbiting the star Sirius, he is 20,000 feet tall and at 450 years old is still considered a child. He is banished from his planet after publishing a book which was deemed as heresy. He decides to go travelling and arrives on the planet Saturn, where he meets the secretary of the Academy of Saturn, who is a third of his size. They discuss philosophy and decide to explore together other worlds. They arrive on the small planet of earth and discover they are able to walk round it in 36 hours. At first they believe the place is uninhabited until they become aware of a boat on one of the oceans, with the use of microscopes they manage to examine the new species and communicate with them. They soon get onto philosophy and they are not impressed with the ideas of Aristotle, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz Locke, and when they get to Thomas Aquinas and his idea that the universe was made for mankind they fall about laughing.A satire on the insignificance of mankind in the universe and the central theme comes across loud and clear. Voltaire was a wicked satirist (Candide) and gave his imagination free reign to indulge his craft here. I can imagine that Micromegas would have been viewed with disdain by religious leaders, but was in the vanguard of the thinking of the enlightenment movement in the mid eighteenth century. Reading today feels a bit like being excluded from a number of in-jokes, but we get the idea. Now it is a curiosity more than anything else, but the central theme still holds true. Here is the final paragraph;“The Sirian resumed his discussion with the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, although in the depths of his heart he was a little angry that the infinitely small had an almost infinitely great pride. He promised to make them a beautiful philosophical book, written very small for their usage, and said that in this book they would see the point of everything. Indeed, he gave them this book before leaving. It was taken to the academy of science in Paris, but when the ancient secretary opened it, he saw nothing but blank pages. "Ah!" he said, "I suspected as much.”3 stars