This Guy Sucked Voltaire with Eleanor Janega
Mar 20, 2025
Dr. Eleanor Janega, a medieval historian and author, joins the conversation to unravel Voltaire's complex legacy. They dive into his satirical masterpiece, "Candide," and explore how he navigated issues like slavery while exposing his limitations and biases. Eleanor critiques his damaging views on medieval studies and discusses his instances of sexism and hypocrisy. The episode unveils Voltaire's troubling relationships and racialized rhetoric, ultimately revealing the contradictions behind his self-crafted image as a moral crusader.
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Voltaire's Popular Legacy
- Voltaire is famous as a prolific 18th-century philosophe who championed civil liberties and satirical critique.
- His output and anti-clerical stance made him a poster figure for Enlightenment secularism despite many contradictions.
Voltaire's Prolific Output
- Claire notes Voltaire wrote roughly 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets, underlining his prolific output.
- Eleanor Janega jokes she doesn't know when he slept given that volume.
A Quip That Haunted Medievalists
- Voltaire's quip that the Holy Roman Empire was 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire' still shapes popular ignorance about medieval history.
- Eleanor Janega says that quote enables lazy, inaccurate dismissals of a complex medieval polity.