A Comparison of Candide to The Carnival of the Animals
...Voltaire’s Candide makes fun of the philosophies of his time. This work points out the problems with famous attitudes of many people of his time and at the same time shows some fo his views on life and how it should be lived. By chronicling the life of an overly optimistic man with outlandishly positive views on life, Voltaire creates a world of poverty, sickness and corruption. Even faced with this tragic world, Candide still maintains his irrational positive views with a perserverence that isn’t well understood by man. Voltaire tells a story of frivolity and naïveté. Candide is sad, by numerous people, to be Voltaire’s greatest work. His inate ability to point out the problems with major philosophy of his time shows his great abilities as a writer and an intellectual. Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals is about, of course, a menagerie of animals. What is most interesting, though, is that, encased in this work that seems to be guided towards children, Saint-Saëns pokes fun at the way composers depict the many animals in their music. With the heavy waltz of the elephant to the eccentric xylophone runs in the dinsodasur, his work is full of satire and brilliance. The work seems lighthearted and fun, the way it should be. Saint-Saëns thought that depiciting animals in music wasn’t exactly the most deep and intelligent thing to do in music. He believed, like many other musicians, that all music should come...