The narrative technique used by Voltaire in Candide dates back as far as the Milesian tales, which were short, erotic narratives first collected in the second century. These became the source of such decadent Latin works as Apulius' Golden Ass and Petronius' Satyrican, copies of which Voltaire had in his library. Related works certainly include the late Greek romances, filled as they were with melodramatic incidents involving the separation of families and lovers, shipwrecks, near-miraculous reunions and discoveries; the pastoral romances, many of which included just this sort of material, and the heroic-gallant romance. But basically the structure of Candide is that of the picaresque narrative. The problem of the author is to provide the main character or characters with an inciting incident and then to start him or them off on the road to adventure. And that is exactly what happened in Candide. Related works, as far as structure is concerned, are Oriental narrative, especially the Arabian Nights, a copy of which was in Voltaire's library; and the medieval Renard the Fox stories, which originated in Germany and swept Europe. But the one work that generally is recognized as having given impetus to the type of narrative wherein the hero travels far and wide and has many startling adventures, the one that flourished originally in Spain but soon won popularity in France and throughout Europe, was the sixteenth century Amadis de Gaula. Don Quixote (1605, 1615) is the acknowledged masterpiece in this tradition.
Strictly speaking, however, the picaresque novel (as the adjective indicates) is the story of roguery. But the technique which it popularized recommended itself to writers of other types of narrative.
