Candide or Optimism Author:Voltaire When he wrote Candide, Voltaire had gained a reputation throughout Europe as a tragic dramatist, an epic poet, and a liberal-minded historian. Candide, although his wittiest novel, deals with the problems of suffering and the existence of evil, and in it Voltaire attacks the hopelessness and callousness of the 'all is for best' philosophy, as p... more »ersonified by the tutor Pangloss.« less