Chapter 2 An On/Off Affair: Voltaire in Eighteenth-Century Vienna
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Abstract
Most of Voltaire’s prose and verse epics were considered dangerous to the maintenance of the Old Regime and Catholic orthodoxy in Austria. The French philosophe was, therefore, top on the Austrian lists of banned books. Works such as the Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, Candide, and the Pucelle d’Orléans were considered totally unacceptable. On the other hand, Voltaire’s plays were highly welcome in Vienna. Virtually all of them were reprinted and staged, some of them also translated. Only in the decade of political and cultural thaw under Emperor Joseph ii, were publishers and journalists able to introduce the public to some of the philosopher’s most biting criticism, with Austrian writers imitating his style. But around 1790 the time of intellectual thaw was over. Voltaire had done his duty of enlightening the Austrians and was again to disappear from the Viennese cultural scene.