Finding the Words to Describe a Disaster: The Lisbon Earthquake in 1755
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake#Philoso...
"The earthquake and its aftermath strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European Age of Enlightenment. The noted writer-philosopher Voltaire used the earthquake in Candide and in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's Candide attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "the best of all possible worlds", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a counterexample."