The Lisbon Earthquake

As the poem’s subtitle, “An inquiry into the maxim, ‘whatever is, is right,” suggests, Voltaire’s “The Lisbon Earthquake” is primarily concerned with the philosophical implications of the 1755 earthquake. During the Enlightenment era, essays and arguments were commonly presented in poetic form. Alexander Pope’s long poem An Essay on Man, is probably the best-known example of a verse essay in English. Voltaire’s “The Lisbon Earthquake,” which in part is a response to Pope’s Essay on Man, takes on this same form.

Voltaire and Pope both make masterful use of poetic techniques to articulate their argument and sharpen their points. However, since “The Lisbon Earthquake” is a translation from the original French “Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne”  and the translator has taken liberties to fit the poem into English heroic verse, many of Voltaire’s poetic nuances have been lost. This analysis, therefore, foregrounds the argument and imagery in Fleming’s translation of “The Lisbon Earthquake” insofar as it is consistent with Voltaire’s original.

Like an essay, the poem’s opening lines state two theses and the evidence that will be used to support them. The first thesis is that “man’s the victim of unceasing woe,” and the speaker claims that that claim will be proven through “Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs” (Lines 3-4). The second, and primary, thesis is “that philosophy is false and vain,” and that claim will be proven through the “lamentations which inspire my strain” (Lines 5-6). “Strain” here likely refers to the poem itself, while the “lamentations” are drawn from the speaker’s own emotional response to the “horrors on horrors” of the previous thesis. In this second, primary thesis, the word philosophy operates as a metonymy. It does not refer to philosophy as a whole—Voltaire himself is engaging in philosophy in this poem—but to a particular philosophical idea: Leibnizian optimism.

The speaker provides evidence for their first claim between Lines 7 and 16 by presenting images of “horrors on horrors” (Line 3). The speaker asks the audience to “approach in crowds,” and to “meditate awhile” on what they see, telling us that there is a communal lesson can be learned from the wreckage and that the lesson requires reflection (Line 6). Graphic images then depict the horrors that the speaker believes will prove his point. One image of particular interest is the “ponderous marble” that has “crushed” a victim. The term “ponderous” evokes marble’s traditional use as an artistic medium. During the Age of Enlightenment when Neo-Classicism, or recreations of classical art styles, was gaining hold in western art, the marble statues were pondered over and used as evidence in larger claims about the world. Here Voltaire uses the same marble an object of destruction—rather than of artistic creation—to remind us of the material reality that art can hide.

The speaker then demonstrates that Lisbon’s destruction was unwarranted. By comparing “fallen Lisbon” to the “voluptuous joys” of Paris and the “opulence luxurious” of London, the speaker makes Lisbon innocent and preempts possible counterarguments about divine justice (Lines 23, 26, 24). This line of reasoning leads to the rhetorical question at Lines 49-50: “what advantage can result to all / From wretched Lisbon’s lamentable fall?” This rhetorical question appears in various forms throughout the poem as a way of demonstrating that no good has come of the destruction. The speaker provides no possible alternative answer, and instead follows the heavy question with a lighter, almost comic tone in Lines 55-56. This shift in tone further demonstrates the absurdity of the question’s assumption that a God would allow such evil. The ironic lines at 55-56 are also the first time the speaker invokes the problem of evil. This idea will be covered at length in the themes section.

Despite the speaker’s ironic tone, his imagined interlocutor tries to justify the destruction by some good. Lines 71-14 show the optimistic interlocutor’s struggle to come up with an answer. All of the lines are vague platitudes. Finally, at Line 74 he states that “For general good from partial ills must flow.” This line has two interesting choices of diction. First, the word “partial” suggests that the “ills” experienced by those killed in the disaster are less severe than death. Second, the word “must” may be scanned as either stressed or unstressed. If stressed, the word reveals the interlocutor’s desperation. Later, Line 74’s maxim is given an example by the poem’s primary speaker, who states that insects rising from their corpse after they die is a good example of “Other’s enjoyments from your woes” (Lines 106-08).

This idea is developed into an ignoble and senseless circle of life, where vultures are eaten eagles (“the bird of Jove”), eagles are shot by men, and men are eaten by vultures (Lines 121-129). The speaker uses this circle of life as evidence that “the world’s members equal ills sustain, / And perish by each other born to pain” (Lines 131-32). All creatures, in other words, cause and experience pain throughout their lives. Life itself is now seen as an ill rather than a gift, or as the speaker asks “Is ill the gift of our Creator kind?” (Line 142).

Many of these arguments are repeated in variations in the second half of the poem. The speaker uses them to disassemble various philosophical positions between Lines 187 and 216. What is perhaps most interesting about this philosophical refrain is its introduction. Just before this display of reason and philosophical engagement, the speaker argues that “God should His will to human kind explain” (Line 183). The speaker is convinced that a reasoned explanation of God’s actions would validate God’s plan. A common retort to this would be that humans cannot understand the will of God. Preempting the response again, the speaker takes care to show the depth and breadth of his philosophical understanding and ability to reason.

The conclusion to the poem’s argument begins at Line 236 with a modified version of the “Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs” that opened the work (Line 3). Now, instead of providing proof, the “griefs on griefs arise” as if the speaker is too afflicted by them to continue. The poem ends first with a restatement of the speaker’s thesis, made more specific through the process of argumentation, that “All now is well; ‘tis an illusion vain” (Line 244). Then, the poem takes a turn and does something similar to modern research papers. “Whilst I mistaken mortals’ weakness share,” the speaker says, “The light of truth I seek in this dark state” (Lines 252-53). The speaker, having fully developed their argument, makes a statement of their own argumentative limitations.

This final act of humility demonstrates that the speaker himself has changed during the course of his argument. Whether this change is the result of emotional exhaustion or self doubt is not clear. Regardless, the poem ends with a note of despair that the speaker’s earlier satire and cheeky humor cannot undo.