Largely because of Candide, Voltaire ranks with Jonathan Swift as one of the greatest satirists in literature. Satire may be defined as the particular literary way of making possible the improvement of humanity and its institutions. The satirist adopts a critical attitude and usually presents his material with wit and humor. Aware of grave limitations in the institutions which humanity has erected, he may seek through laughter to effect a remodeling rather than the demolishing of them. Voltaire is to be identified as such a satirist, and he sought a most thorough-going remodeling of human behavior and institutions.
Basically satire is of two kinds: that which follows the tradition of Horace, which is mild, urbane, good-natured, and which aims to correct by means of tolerant, sympathetic laughter; and that of Juvenal, which is biting, vituperative, derisive, and which is filled with moral indignation at the corruption and evil of man and his institutions. To put it another way, one may say that Horatian satire sports with folly, and that Juvenalian satire attacks crimes or at least offenses deemed to be anti-social. Obviously the latter type, if it invites laughter at all, invites scornful laughter. Both types of satire are found in Candide. And the significant thing is that even when Voltaire was most aroused, he employed the light touch and achieved a tone often of gaiety that is deceptive to the literal-minded reader who accepts the tale as an exaggerated account of the protagonist's adventures and no more. Voltaire's primary device as a satirist is that of irony, applying it not only to statement but also to event, situation, and structure.
