Arouet, poète épicurien. Les voix de l'épicurisme dans la poésie de jeunesse de Voltaire

Abstract

This article studies the nature and extent of Epicurean influence on Arouet' s early poetry, up to 1722, when he writes the poem later known as the Epître à Uranie. The influence of Chaulieu and the Société du Temple is evident in the two epistles in verse and prose published in the Mercure in 1716 and 1717 ; in these poems, for a wide public, the Epicureanism hardly goes beyond conventional libertinism. In other poems, however, circulated in manuscript among a limited circle of friends, the Epicurean tone is more daring : more libertine in A Mile Duclos, more philosophical in the Epître à Uranie. Most radical of all is the Epître à Mme de G., in which religion is shown as antithetical to happiness and a source of superstition ; Voltaire exercised strict control over the circulation of this work, which was never published in his lifetime. This spectrum of Epicurean voices, targetted at different audiences, is pivotal in the genesis of Voltaire's poetic voice.