ABSTRACT
The amount of Voltaire’s literary criticism is large. The Commentary on Corneille is an immense and painstaking work. The prime defect of Voltaire’s critical standards is not the exaction of compliance to various definitions and “rules from Aristotle”, but in the reference of all literature to the touch-stones of good sense and probability, as those qualities were conceived by a refined Frenchman of the eighteenth century. The full fury of Voltairean good taste was displayed in his dramatic criticism. His admiration for Racine was unbounded, for Corneille great, but with reserves ; he believed that Racine, Corneille, and Moliere had created the finest and noblest drama in the world. Good sense, vraisemblance, sobriety, precision, elegance, clarity, are the qualities Voltaire admired and possessed. Modern critics are too severe in judging Voltaire’s critical attitude. Because he said Shakespeare was a drunken savage, they conclude he was an imbecile.
