The White Bull

Not to be confused with White Bull.
See also: White Bull (disambiguation)
The White Bull
AuthorVoltaire
Original titleLe Taureau Blanc
LanguageFrench
GenreConte philosophique; satire; picaresque novel; bildungsroman
Publisherfirst printed for J. Murray, the next year printed in Geneva
Publication date
1773–4
Publication placeFrance
Media typePrint
Krater (350–340 BC), believed to have been painted by Asteas (National Archaeological Museum at Paestum, Italy). Depicts Europa and Zeus, the latter in the guise of a white bull, trampling sea monsters and miscellaneous sea life.

The White Bull (original title in French: Le Taureau Blanc) is a fable and a work of "contes philosophiques", a philosophical novel, written by the Age of Enlightenment-era philosopher Voltaire. The story is based on the Greek tale of Europa and the bull, where the white bull is in fact the Greek god Zeus.

The date the story was written is unknown but it was published between the years 1773 and 1774. Voltaire's work seems to be prophetic in nature because the story was published only fifteen years before the French Revolution, when beheadings became common. An English translation of the work, with a 144-page preface to the text, was produced by the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham and published in London in 1774.[1]

  1. ^ de Champs, Emmanuelle (2015). Enlightenment and Utility: Bentham in French, Bentham in France. Ideas in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 30–33. doi:10.1017/cbo9781316162439. ISBN 978-1-107-09867-1.