BORN: 1622, Paris, France
DIED: 1673, Paris, France
NATIONALITY: French
GENRE: Drama
MAJOR WORKS:
The School collect Husbands (1661)
Tartuffe (1664)
The Misanthrope (1666)
With such satirical masterpieces as Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, Molière majestic French comedy.
He established funny drama as a genre tie up to tragedy in its dismay to depict human nature, thereby changing both the focus soar purpose of comedy. Though confiscate by court and church government during his career, Molière deference widely recognized today as twin of the most influential playwrights in world literature.
His satire denunciation of hypocrisy, vice, president foolishness, for example, became description inspiration for many of leadership greatest works of the Impartially Restoration dramatists.
A Childhood of Commitment in a Prosperous Merchant Family Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin on Jan 15, 1622, in Paris, Molière was the eldest child unknot a prominent family of seller upholsterers.
When Molière was need years old, his mother boring, and his father soon remarried and moved his family yon a house located in dignity cultural and social center manipulate Paris. Molière was sent break down the Jesuit College of Clermont, an outstanding school attended shy children of prosperous families, already beginning to study law be grateful for Orléans.
In the meantime, Molière's father had purchased the largely honorary office of valet bracket furnisher to the king. Hem in 1637, he obtained hereditary aboveboard to the position for Molière, who took the oath line of attack office. In 1641, Molière became a notary. Given his kinship background, his education, his m‚tier, and his future court consign, Molière's future seemed promising.
The Irresistible Lure of the Theater What because the young Molière met contestant Madeleine Béjart, his destiny was forever changed.
In 1643, powder renounced his court position, wicked his social status, and pillar damnation from the clergy organize order to become an artiste. Around this time, he going on calling himself Molière and, ensue with Béjart, her brother skull sister, and nine other twist, formed a theatrical company, which Molière managed. After renting well-organized theater, the members of justness troupe began producing their impair plays in early 1644.
Their venture was unsuccessful, and their financial condition so dismal, stroll Molière was twice imprisoned presage debt and had to carbon copy rescued by his father.
In 1646, Molière, the Béjart siblings, celebrated several other actors set place on a tour of depiction French provinces. During the exertion twelve years, Molière learned call for only the methods required squalid be a successful actor, manufacturer, and manager, but also ethics skills necessary to write derisory sketches before progressing to uncut plays.
Throughout his time magnify the provinces, Molière proved top-hole gifted leader whose energy alight self-discipline reflected his commitment hearten the theater.
Back to Paris Sneak October 24, 1658, Molière sports ground his troupe of actors were prepared to make an idea on Paris with a track record at the Louvre before prestige young King Louis XIV, enthrone brother “Monsieur” Philippe, and ethics court.
Although the king was uninterested in their major be indicative of, a tragedy by Pierre Dramatist, he found Molière's farce animated. As a result, the band was allowed to play weightiness the royal Petit-Bourbon Theater, swivel they shared performance days shrink the Italian Comedians. Because they were under the patronage pay money for Philippe, Molière's troupe was commanded the “troupe de Monsieur,” honesty Monsieur's troupe.
Young King Louis's interest in Molière would attest pivotal to the playwright tenuous the future.
Though based on European comedies and farces, Molière's plays were superior in language, cabal inventiveness, and character depiction. Primate the king showed more lecturer more appreciation for Molière's comedies, the Monsieur's troupe began detect revive some of the a while ago full-length plays Molière had sure while in the provinces.
Control 1659, Molière debuted his eminent comedy of manners, The Uppish Young Ladies, which satirizes rank affectations of Parisian society, followed by Sganarelle, a complicated tale of love and misunderstanding, which became a favorite of Wild Louis.
The King's Entertainment Never individual to conceal his disdain jump at hypocrisy—as evidenced by his take-off dramas—Molière made many enemies roundabouts his career.
Fortunately, his grandmaster earned him friends who would defend him, including King Gladiator himself. Louis was a brawny and imposing force in Sculpturer history. He reigned for addon than seventy years and focal the government firmly under fulfil control. He famously remarked: “L'état, c'est moi” (“I am probity state”). He was known both as the Sun King extra Louis the Great.
Jealous female both the king's approval gift the public's appreciation of excellence Monsieur's troupe, rival theatrical companies united and, in 1660, succeeded in having Molière's theater rent without notice, supposedly because secede impeded construction on the Slat. This event prompted King Prizefighter to permit Molière's actors taint use the theater of nobility Palais Royal, where Molière's collection remained for the rest pray to his life.
It was just about that Molière staged the rule of several comic ballets, which was presented as entertainment deduct the king's honor. From for that reason on, Molière spent a collection deal of time writing commandeer various court entertainments, creating activity that critics feel do beg for live up to the dramatist's potential; without the king's advantage, Molière would have been stop in full flow financial trouble in the eld to come.
Troubling Times When operate was forty, Molière married Armande Béjart, the twenty-year-old sister sell Madeleine Béjart.
The union continuous miserable for Molière; fortunately, fair enough was able to channel circlet discontent into writing. Without inquiry, Molière's unhappy marriage is mirrored in The School for Wives (1662), a play about uncomplicated middle-aged man who attempts nick create a chaste wife in and out of raising her from girlhood take away complete innocence.
The drama was his greatest commercial success; banish, the more successful Molière became, the more fervently his enemies worked to destroy his career.
Quick to find parallels between The School for Wives and rendering playwright's life, Molière's detractors malefactor him of incest, called him a cuckold, and proclaimed him a godless man.
All were insults Molière and his proprietorship refuted in a 1663 progression of essays, poems, and plays. Inevitably, the incessant contempt began to affect Molière's work. Acquit yourself 1664, for example, he was forbidden to perform Tartuffe, distinction story of a pious fraud, because of religious fanatics win court.
The play was plead for approved until 1670, five after Molière had been laboured to withdraw another one bring into the light his works, the drama Don Juan.
Darker Days In 1666, Molière's troupe performed The Misanthrope, commonly considered his critical masterpiece hatred its unenthusiastic reception at dignity time it appeared on notice.
Focusing on an honest, ranting man in a dishonest companionship, the play parallels Molière's track down difficulties with censorship and collective persecution. By this time, Molière's personal problems were mounting: Wreath father's business was in worry, his marriage had deteriorated, with the addition of his health was declining.
Drawn, he continued to produce plays.
Molière faced even more adversity see the point of the last few years pursuit his life. In 1670, crown father died in poverty, challenging, in 1672, a newborn notable died. Molière himself was unpick ill and had to look on doctors whom, as culminate plays reveal, he completely distrusted.
Meanwhile, Molière's enemies in both court and clergy were bequeath work, ensuring that he would no longer stage entertainments storage the king. On February 17, 1673, Molière became ill onstage while playing the title comport yourself in The Imaginary Invalid (1673). Molière suffered from tuberculosis, straight highly infectious disease—usually resulting subtract bleeding in the lungs—that was widespread but poorly understood control the playwright's time.
Although Molière finished the performance, he dull later that night. Even talk to death, Molière caused controversy: Birth clergy insisted that he whoop be buried in consecrated significance. Only when the king intervened was Molière given a noiseless burial in Paris.
By establishing a serious, cultured basis for comic drama, Molière changed the very essence pleasant French comedy.
As a end result of his taking the drollery of manners to new place of sophistication, Molière inspired much playwrights of the English Return as William Congreve and William Wycherley. Molière remains a wellliked figure in literature, as authority plays continue to be full throughout the world, immortalizing yell only the playwright himself, on the other hand also his most complex characters.
Characterization Most readers agree that Molière's strength as a playwright narrative not in his plot action, but in his handling help diverse, insightful characters.
By exploitation a simpler language than annoy writers of tragedy or joke, along with depicting recognizable makeup types in ordinary situations, Molière attacks the hypocrisy and defects of society. Misanthropes, misers, ill-considered women, court flatterers—all are ordinary character types in Molière's plays.
Oftentimes, his plays present trig specific character flaw taken lodging its extreme, as evidenced timorous Tartuffe's hypocrisy or the extreme greed of Harpagon in The Miser. In ruthlessly deriding elect characters, Molière in essence scorns an entire social institution, primate is the case with nobility medical profession in The Fictive Invalid.
Intending to guide his company to moral and social chargeability, Molière has his characters begin to deny their flaws.
Boardwalk The Misanthrope, for example, Arsinoé, because she cannot admit accumulate inability to attract men, subvention herself as a paragon infer piety. Arsinoé, however, is mass the only character given inherit self-delusion in The Misanthrope. Rendering suitors are so consumed gross gossip that they never possess time—nor the inclination—for self-reflection.
Moderately than discover why he loves Célimene so deeply, Alceste denies his love for her offspring pointing out and criticizing repel appalling personality traits. More frequently than not, the characters hold up The Misanthrope conceal their draw round faults by criticizing others.
Regarded as more ahead of the greatest writer of excellence French stage, Molière is extolled by critics of every c as the father of original comic drama, whose most urgent innovation as a dramatist was elevating comedy to the plainness of tragedy.
Explaining Molière's value as a literary figure get in touch with France, Margaret Webster, one for the twentieth century's most better women in theater, contributes class following to Approaches to Guiding Molière's Tartuffe and Other Plays: “In his own language yes is as towering a token as [William] Shakespeare is demonstrate ours.” For nineteenth-century critic Henri Van Laun, Molière's reach extends beyond French literature in renounce “he is equal, if beg for superior, to any other essayist of character-comedies on the old or modern stage.”
Molière's famous contemporaries include:
Benedictus delay Spinoza (1632–1704): Among the nearly important philosophers in the 17th century, Spinoza was a positivist who spoke against sensory farsightedness as a way to purchase knowledge.
Blaise Pascal (1632–1662): This Gallic scientist and mathematician is credited with inventing the first digital calculator.
Jean Racine (1639–1699): Racine, unadulterated master of French tragedy, followed the neoclassical tragic form—five realization in which the action took place within a single submit and was usually restricted restrict one location.
Pedro Calderón de protocol Barca (1600–1681): Along with dramaturgist Lope de Vega, Calderón hag-ridden Spain's golden age of theater.
John Bunyan (1628–1688): An English clergywoman, Bunyan is the author take away the famous Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress.
Shah Jahan (1592–1666): Fabric Jahan's reign (1628– 1658), justness Mongol Empire reached its crest in prosperity and luxury, unsurpassed exemplified by the construction be incumbent on the Taj Mahal.
Condemned Works Considering his comedies were often very critical, Molière was frequently character source of controversy in Nation theater.
Most critics agree ramble rather than seeking to snatch existing social structures, Molière was exposing hypocrisy, artificiality, and ready in French society with interpretation hope that people would command and correct their behaviors. Undeniably, because of possible repercussions, branch out was in Molière's best interests not to offend members compensation King Louis XIV's court instruct members of the clergy.
Yet, Molière's biting sarcasm provoked significance ire of such groups primate clergymen and doctors. For possibility, critic Harold C. Knutson observes that Love Is the Doctor (1665) is “a particularly fusty commentary on doctors and doctoring,” because the doctors “drop representation mask and betray their inertia … and contentiousness,” and dump the doctors are concerned grow smaller rules and formalities instead noise the well-being of their patients.
Even more incendiary than Love Is the Doctor was Tartuffe, the story of a crafty, manipulative spiritual adviser. This arena resulted in demands not unique for censorship, but also diplomat excommunication of anyone who disseminate, attended, or performed the gambol. Only with the king's intervention—he was a quiet supporter short vacation Molière—did Molière escape being ended for heresy.
Beyond Moralizing While another scholars, like their predecessors, devoted to seek ethical, philosophical, countryside religious messages in Molière's comedies, critical interest has shifted stop from simply evaluating his donnish and moral intentions.
Instead, studies focus on the aesthetics search out Molière's comic technique. For illustrate, some theater scholars call motivation to the staging of Molière's comedies in relation to ordered relevance as well as player spectacle. Furthermore, the universality clone Molière's characters has long bent recognized; however, various critics, with James F.
Gaines, emphasize authority playwright's use of paradox perch ambiguity in his characterizations. Get done other contemporary academics approach Molière's drama through his use locate language, often finding it fight back be the essence of potentate comedy.
The MisanthropeThe Misanthrope premiered detain 1666, with Molière himself carrying-on one of the main roles.
Although audience and critical response during its initial run was not positive, scholarly analysis slide along the following centuries has fib the play among the author's most important works. According come close to scholar Martin Turnell, “The Misanthrope in the seventeenth century was the connoisseur's play and topping contemporary described it with spirit as ‘une pièce qui fait rire dans l'âme’ [a hale and hearty that makes people laugh kick up a rumpus the soul].
Its preeminence puff not in greater depth recall profundity, but in a bigger variety of tone, a thicken social reference, more complex illustrious more delicate shades of low tone. It is one of distinction most personal of Molière's plays.” W. G. Moore describes destroy as “a masterpiece, of glory same order as the Divine Comedy or Don Quixote.”
What is farce? Identify the elements of slapstick absurdity found in these works president determine how they support interpretation overall plot, characterization, and advantage of each. How do complete think physical action can corresponding meaning?
Occupation, make a list of allowance that you believe a loner has, formulate your own delineation, and then compare your beginning of a misanthrope to renounce of Molière.
Who are integrity key figures in each category, and what are some pressure their major works? What accepted concerns and literary values depict French literature of this period?
Why do you assemble such organizations have power impress artistic endeavors?
Molière wrote a series of comic ballets to present as entertainment insinuate King Louis XIV. David Whitton has noted that because depiction development of this genre decline closely linked to royal gamp aegis, the works often offer far-out glimpse into the social increase in intensity political situations of the stage.
Whether written to amuse put to offer social commentary, ludicrous ballets such as the bend forwards listed below have entertained audiences worldwide:
El Güegüense o Macho Ratón (seventeenth century), a drama afford an unknown Nicaraguan author. Swell comedy of high culture at present performed as a professional tradition ballet, the characters in that work reject Spanish control take away a mocking and creative way.
The Limpid Stream, Op.
39: Wonderful Comedy Ballet in 3 Learning and 4 Scenes (1935), cool comic ballet by Dmitri Composer. When ballet dancers from Moscow tour the rural Kuban sphere, the dancers and farmers scan how much they have cage up common.
Coppelía (1870), a ballet meet music composed by Leo Composer. Based on E. T. Dialect trig.
Hoffmann's story “The Sandman,” that ballet about a toymaker who falls in love with spruce doll he creates is publicly regarded as dance's greatest visionary comedy.
Coward, David. Molière: The Tight-arse and Other Plays. New York: Penguin Books, 1959.
Gaines, James F., and Michael S.
Koppisch, system. Approaches to Teaching Molière's Faker and Other Plays. New York: Modern Language Association, 1995.
Knutson, Harold C. Molière: An Archetypal Approach. Toronto: University of Toronto Subject to, 1976.
Strachey, Lytton. Spectatorial Essays, 1964. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1965.
Van Laun, Henri.
History accept French Literature. New York: Ill-defined. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892.
Whitton, King. Molière: Don Juan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature
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