JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN
MOLIERE IN ENGLISH (http://moliere-in-english.com/)
THEATRE DATABASE : MOLIÈRE (JEAN BAPTISTE DE POQUELIN, 1621-1673)
MOLIERE INDEX (http://www.theatrehistory.com/french/moliere.html)
Biography
of Moliere - French Dramatist
(http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Theatre/Moliere/moliere.shtml)
Moliere's Boyhood and Education (http://www.theatrehistory.com/french/moliere001.html)
Biography of Moliere (http://www.2020site.org/moliere/)
Molière - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moliere)
Study Guide to Moliere's [Tartuffe]
Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière (1622–1673). Tartuffe.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
http://www.bartleby.com/26/4/1001.html
Introductory Note
JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN, better known by his stage name of Molière, stands without a rival at the head of French comedy. Born at Paris in January, 1622, where his father held a position in the royal household, he was educated at the Jesuit Collège de Clermont, and for some time studied law, which he soon abandoned for the stage. His life was spent in Paris and in the provinces, acting, directing performances, managing theaters, and writing plays. He had his share of applause from the king and from the public; but the satire in his comedies made him many enemies, and he was the object of the most venomous attacks and the most impossible slanders. Nor did he find much solace at home; for he married unfortunately, and the unhappiness that followed increased the bitterness that public hostility had brought into his life. On February 17, 1673, while acting in “La Malade Imaginaire,” the last of his masterpieces, he was seized with illness and died a few hours later.
The first of the greater works of Molière was “Les Précieuses Ridicules,” produced in 1659. In this brilliant piece Molière lifted French comedy to a new level and gave it a new purpose—the satirizing of contemporary manners and affectations by frank portrayal and criticism. In the great plays that followed, “The School for Husbands” and “The School for Wives,” “The Misanthrope” and “The Hypocrite” (Tartuffe), “The Miser” and “The Hypochondriac,” “The Learned Ladies,” “The Doctor in Spite of Himself,” “The Citizen Turned Gentleman,” and many others, he exposed mercilessly one after another the vices and foibles of the day.
His characteristic qualities are nowhere better exhibited than in “Tartuffe.” Compared with such characterization as Shakespeare’s, Molière’s method of portraying life may seem to be lacking in complexity; but it is precisely the simplicity with which creations like Tartuffe embody the weakness or vice they represent that has given them their place as universally types of human nature.
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin 1622–73, French playwright and actor, b. Paris; son of a merchant who was upholsterer to the king. His name was originally Jean Baptiste Poquelin. Molière was the creator of French high comedy; his genius lay in exposing the hypocrisies and follies of his society through satire.
Life
In his youth Moliére joined the Béjart troupe of professional actors.
Madeleine Béjart was for years his mistress, but in 1662 he scandalized many by
marrying Armande Béjart, who was either Madeleine’s younger sister or her
daughter. The little company, headed by Molière and called the Illustre Théâtre,
settled (1643) in Paris, but their venture failed (1645), and they spent the
next 13 years touring the provinces. They returned in triumph with a performance
of Molière’s Le Docteur amoureux for Louis XIV. Under royal patronage
this troupe, performing at the Palais Royal, enjoyed continuous success; it is
known as the ancestor of the Comédie
Française. Molière had, nevertheless, to contend with rivalry from the Hôtel de Bourgogne and with cries of impiety and
slander from critics and other authors.
The Plays
The great variety in Molière’s work stems from his being at once actor,
director, stage manager, and writer. Influenced by the commedia dell’arte, he wrote farces, comedies,
masks, and ballets on short notice for the entertainment of the court. He is
best known for the great comedies of character in which he ridicules a vice or a
type of excess by caricaturing a person who is its incarnation: Le
Tartuffe (1664), on the religious hypocrite; Le Misanthrope (1666),
on the antisocial man; L’Avare (1668, tr. The Miser); and Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670, tr. The Would-Be Gentleman), on the
parvenu.
Other plays in which vices are personified are Les Femmes savantes (1672, tr. The Learned Women), on the fashionable, affected intellectuals whom he had already lampooned in Les Précieuses ridicules (1659), often called the first comedy of manners and Le Malade imaginaire (1673), on the hypochondriac. Molière was acting the title role of the latter when he was fatally stricken. Also comedies of character, but depending more on absurdities, are L’École des maris (1661, tr. The School for Husbands) and L’École des femmes (1662, tr. The School for Wives), which was followed by a skit against the critics, La Critique de l’École des femmes (1663); and Don Juan (1665), an adaptation of the old story of the libertine.
The playwright’s farces are uproarious—Sganarelle (1660), Le Médecin malgré lui (1666, tr. The Doctor in Spite of Himself), George Dandin (1668), Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671, tr. Scapin, the Trickster), and La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas (1671). Among Molière’s other works are the poetic Amphitryon (1668), after Plautus; L’Étourdi (1653?, tr. The Blunderer); Le Dépit amoureux (1656, tr. The Amorous Quarrel); and Le Mariage forcé (1664, tr. The Forced Marriage).
Bibliography
A primary source on Molière’s career is the careful Registre or
daybook of programs, expenditures, and receipts of the Paris company from 1658.
It was kept by the actor Charles Varlet de la Grange (1639?—1692).
See also biographies by H. M. Trollope (1905), D. B. W. Lewis (1959), J.
Palmer (2d ed. 1965), and V. Scott (2001); studies by P. A. Chapman (1941, repr.
1965), L. Gossman (1969), R. Fernandez (1929, repr. 1980), N. Gross (1982), and
H. C. Knutson (1987).
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia University Press.
commedia
dell’arte
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
Commedia Dell’Arte, popular form of comedy employing improvised dialogue and masked characters that flourished in Italy from the 16th to the 18th cent.
Characters of the Commedia Dell’Arte
The characters or “masks,” in spite of changes over the years, retained much
of their original flavor. Most important were the zanni, or servant
types; Arlecchino, or Harlequin, was the most famous. He was an acrobat and a
wit, childlike and amorous. He wore a catlike mask and motley colored clothes
and carried a bat or wooden sword, the ancestor of the slapstick. His crony,
Brighella, was more roguish and sophisticated, a cowardly villain who would do
anything for money. Figaro and Molière’s Scapin are descendants of this type.
Pedrolino was a white-faced, moon-struck dreamer; the French Pierrot is his descendant. Pagliaccio, the
forerunner of today’s clown, was closely akin to Pedrolino.
Pulcinella, as seen in the English Punch and Judy shows, was a dwarfish humpback with a crooked nose, the cruel bachelor who chased pretty girls. Pantalone or Pantaloon was a caricature of the Venetian merchant, rich and retired, mean and miserly, with a young wife or an adventurous daughter. Il Dottore (the doctor), his only friend, was a caricature of learning—pompous and fraudulent; he survives in the works of Molière. Il Capitano (the captain) was a caricature of the professional soldier—bold, swaggering, and cowardly. He was replaced by the more agile Scarramuccia or Scaramouche, who, dressed in black and carrying a pointed sword, was the Robin Hood of his day.
The handsome Inamorato (the lover) went by many names. He wore no mask and had to be eloquent in order to speak the love declamations. The Inamorata was his female counterpart; Isabella Andreini was the most famous. Her servant, usually called Columbine, was the beloved of Harlequin. Witty, bright, and given to intrigue, she developed into such characters as Harlequine and Pierrette. La Ruffiana was an old woman, either the mother or a village gossip, who thwarted the lovers. Cantarina and Ballerina often took part in the comedy, but for the most part their job was to sing, dance, or play music. None of the women wore masks.
Influence
The impact of commedia dell’arte on European drama can be seen in French
pantomime and the English harlequinade. The ensemble companies generally
performed in Italy, although a company called the comédie-italienne was
established in Paris in 1661. The commedia dell’arte survived the early 18th
cent. only by means of its vast influence on written dramatic forms.
Bibliography
See K. M. Lea, The Italian Popular Comedy (2 vol., 1934, repr. 1962);
W. Smith, Commedia Dell’arte (rev. ed. 1964); P. L. Duchartre, The
Italian Comedy (tr. 1928, repr. 1965); A. Nicoll, The World of Harlequin:
A Critical Study of the Commedia dell’Arte (1987).
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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia University Press. |