SOURCE: Grieder, Josephine. “Orthodox and Paradox: The Structure of Candide.” French Review 57, no. 4 (March 1984): 485-92.

In the essay that follows, Grieder studies the structure of Candide with respect to the technique of literary paradox.

That critics should still continue to argue about Candide is scarcely surprising. To summarize it is well-nigh impossible; to isolate one idea is often to find that idea contradicted or betrayed further on. Underlying the apparent chaos, I would suggest, is in fact a venerable literary genre: that of paradox. In the epilogue to her distinguished study Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox, Rosalie Colie concludes that by the eighteenth century the “epidemic” had, in general, run its course. Nevertheless, her analysis of certain of its characteristics is equally germane to Candide and provides an orderly structure whose function is to accommodate what appears to be defiant disorderliness.

In the literary tradition of...