L’ironie dans La princesse de Babylone de Voltaire : Transmettre des idées polémiques et philosophiques

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to analyse the use of irony in one of Voltaire's philosophical tales, La princesse de Babylone (1768). Taking as a starting point three perspectives on irony (from philosophy, linguistics, and literature) as well as the context in which Voltaire wrote this tale, this thesis examines the use of irony, its objectives and how it permits the transmission of polemical and philosophical ideas. In the tale, irony is used to criticize mainly religion, political power, and society. Another key aspect of Voltaire’s irony in this tale is the presence of a standard, against which the reader is invited to compare society, thus increasing the irony of certain passages of the tale.