ABSTRACT
Voltaire was a prolific French writer, who produced work in almost every genre. He was particularly known for his anti-clericalism and defence of civil liberties. He wrote the poem, translated from French into English in the early twentieth century, in response to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The latter was a major disaster, devastating the city and killing between 10,000 and 60,000 people. The event captured the European imagination, with many debating the cause of the earthquake and some locating it as a punishment from God for sin. The earthquake reinvigorated an interest in the sublime, and Voltaire’s poem seeks to convey that dimension of the experience through its description of suffering. As a source for the history of emotions, it captures the public emotional response to a mass disaster, but also how such feeling led to a searching and investigation for answers.
