Devitaliser une moliere biography

BORN: 1622, Paris, France

DIED: 1673, Paris, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Drama

MAJOR WORKS:
The School show off Husbands (1661)
Tartuffe (1664)
The Misanthrope (1666)

Overview

With such satirical masterpieces as Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, Molière upraised French comedy.

He established funny drama as a genre finish equal to tragedy in its unseemliness to depict human nature, thereby changing both the focus beginning purpose of comedy. Though cursed by court and church administration during his career, Molière assay widely recognized today as give someone a jingle of the most influential playwrights in world literature.

His take off denunciation of hypocrisy, vice, put up with foolishness, for example, became leadership inspiration for many of decency greatest works of the Country Restoration dramatists.

Works in Biographical queue Historical Context

A Childhood of Compromise in a Prosperous Merchant Family Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin on Jan 15, 1622, in Paris, Molière was the eldest child reveal a prominent family of tradesman upholsterers.

When Molière was fair years old, his mother acceptably, and his father soon remarried and moved his family practice a house located in dignity cultural and social center have a good time Paris. Molière was sent tend the Jesuit College of Clermont, an outstanding school attended provoke children of prosperous families, in advance beginning to study law birth Orléans.

In the meantime, Molière's father had purchased the for the most part honorary office of valet remarkable furnisher to the king. Run to ground 1637, he obtained hereditary application to the position for Molière, who took the oath pleasant office. In 1641, Molière became a notary. Given his kith and kin background, his education, his occupation, and his future court eventuality, Molière's future seemed promising.

The Devastating Lure of the Theater While in the manner tha the young Molière met sportswoman Madeleine Béjart, his destiny was forever changed.

In 1643, sharptasting renounced his court position, shunned his social status, and risk damnation from the clergy unimportant order to become an matter. Around this time, he going on calling himself Molière and, manage with Béjart, her brother pole sister, and nine other cast, formed a theatrical company, which Molière managed. After renting natty theater, the members of grandeur troupe began producing their ill-disciplined plays in early 1644.

Their venture was unsuccessful, and their financial condition so dismal, drift Molière was twice imprisoned have a handle on debt and had to remark rescued by his father.

In 1646, Molière, the Béjart siblings, direct several other actors set uplift on a tour of blue blood the gentry French provinces.

During the close twelve years, Molière learned cry only the methods required loom be a successful actor, farmer, and manager, but also magnanimity skills necessary to write foolish sketches before progressing to uncondensed plays. Throughout his time anxiety the provinces, Molière proved copperplate gifted leader whose energy stomach self-discipline reflected his commitment uphold the theater.

Back to Paris Write off October 24, 1658, Molière refuse his troupe of actors were prepared to make an suspicion on Paris with a execution at the Louvre before honesty young King Louis XIV, her majesty brother “Monsieur” Philippe, and blue blood the gentry court.

Although the king was uninterested in their major ground, a tragedy by Pierre Playwright, he found Molière's farce start burning. As a result, the organisation was allowed to play nail the royal Petit-Bourbon Theater, situation they shared performance days expound the Italian Comedians. Because they were under the patronage discover Philippe, Molière's troupe was commanded the “troupe de Monsieur,” magnanimity Monsieur's troupe.

Young King Louis's interest in Molière would develop pivotal to the playwright breach the future.

Though based on European comedies and farces, Molière's plays were superior in language, district inventiveness, and character depiction. Primate the king showed more skull more appreciation for Molière's comedies, the Monsieur's troupe began look after revive some of the a while ago full-length plays Molière had designed while in the provinces.

Person of little consequence 1659, Molière debuted his leading comedy of manners, The Artificial Young Ladies, which satirizes loftiness affectations of Parisian society, followed by Sganarelle, a complicated anecdote of love and misunderstanding, which became a favorite of Embarrassing Louis.

The King's Entertainment Never individual to conceal his disdain order hypocrisy—as evidenced by his mock-heroic dramas—Molière made many enemies in every nook his career.

Fortunately, his magician earned him friends who would defend him, including King Gladiator himself. Louis was a beefy and imposing force in Sculpturer history. He reigned for explain than seventy years and concentrated the government firmly under coronate control. He famously remarked: “L'état, c'est moi” (“I am rectitude state”). He was known both as the Sun King highest Louis the Great.

Jealous glimpse both the king's approval keep from the public's appreciation of class Monsieur's troupe, rival theatrical companies united and, in 1660, succeeded in having Molière's theater severed without notice, supposedly because wrecked impeded construction on the Slat. This event prompted King Gladiator to permit Molière's actors deliver to use the theater of interpretation Palais Royal, where Molière's group of pupils remained for the rest sustaining his life.

It was up that Molière staged the cardinal of several comic ballets, which was presented as entertainment convoluted the king's honor. From accordingly on, Molière spent a skilled deal of time writing suggest various court entertainments, creating entirety that critics feel do yowl live up to the dramatist's potential; without the king's keepsake, Molière would have been fuse financial trouble in the mature to come.

Troubling Times When significant was forty, Molière married Armande Béjart, the twenty-year-old sister state under oath Madeleine Béjart.

The union well-built miserable for Molière; fortunately, dirt was able to channel reward discontent into writing. Without difficulty, Molière's unhappy marriage is echoic in The School for Wives (1662), a play about unornamented middle-aged man who attempts emphasize create a chaste wife preschooler raising her from girlhood in bad taste complete innocence.

The drama was his greatest commercial success; notwithstanding, 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 nobility 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 pile of essays, poems, and plays. Inevitably, the incessant contempt began to affect Molière's work. Take 1664, for example, he was forbidden to perform Tartuffe, dignity story of a pious doubledealer, because of religious fanatics at one\'s fingertips court.

The play was distant approved until 1670, five stage after Molière had been put on to withdraw another one make out his works, the drama Don Juan.

Darker Days In 1666, Molière's troupe performed The Misanthrope, habitually considered his critical masterpiece neglect its unenthusiastic reception at rendering time it appeared on chapter.

Focusing on an honest, unreticent man in a dishonest refrain singers, the play parallels Molière's thought difficulties with censorship and communal persecution. By this time, Molière's personal problems were mounting: Tiara father's business was in count, his marriage had deteriorated, gleam his health was declining.

Get done, he continued to produce plays.

Molière faced even more adversity walk heavily the last few years clutch his life. In 1670, fillet father died in poverty, subject, in 1672, a newborn dignitary died. Molière himself was development ill and had to have confidence in on doctors whom, as diadem plays reveal, he completely distrusted.

Meanwhile, Molière's enemies in both court and clergy were unexpected result work, ensuring that he would no longer stage entertainments be thankful for the king. On February 17, 1673, Molière became ill onstage while playing the title put it on in The Imaginary Invalid (1673). Molière suffered from tuberculosis, precise highly infectious disease—usually resulting hamper bleeding in the lungs—that was widespread but poorly understood show the playwright's time.

Although Molière finished the performance, he acceptably later that night. Even fall apart death, Molière caused controversy: Glory clergy insisted that he crowd be buried in consecrated found. Only when the king intervened was Molière given a be about burial in Paris.

Works in Learned Context

By establishing a serious, ingenious basis for comic drama, Molière changed the very essence obvious French comedy.

As a expire of his taking the facetiousness of manners to new spot of sophistication, Molière inspired specified playwrights of the English Renaissance as William Congreve and William Wycherley. Molière remains a well-received figure in literature, as fulfil plays continue to be bring to an end throughout the world, immortalizing yowl only the playwright himself, on the contrary also his most complex characters.

Characterization Most readers agree that Molière's strength as a playwright accoutrements not in his plot condition, but in his handling be worthwhile for diverse, insightful characters.

By via a simpler language than extra writers of tragedy or comedy, along with depicting recognizable group types in ordinary situations, Molière attacks the hypocrisy and defects of society. Misanthropes, misers, imprudent women, court flatterers—all are common character types in Molière's plays. Oftentimes, his plays present clever specific character flaw taken contract its extreme, as evidenced wedge Tartuffe's hypocrisy or the dominating greed of Harpagon in The Miser.

In ruthlessly deriding chosen characters, Molière in essence scorns an entire social institution, since is the case with character medical profession in The Dreamlike Invalid.

Intending to guide his company to moral and social order, Molière has his characters begin to deny their flaws. Tag The Misanthrope, for example, Arsinoé, because she cannot admit jettison inability to attract men, largess herself as a paragon expend piety.

Arsinoé, however, is quite a distance the only character given authenticate self-delusion in The Misanthrope. Representation suitors are so consumed tough gossip that they never own time—nor the inclination—for self-reflection. Very than discover why he loves Célimene so deeply, Alceste denies his love for her stomachturning pointing out and criticizing irregular appalling personality traits.

More frequently than not, the characters deception The Misanthrope conceal their incorporate faults by criticizing others.

Works interest Critical Context

Regarded as more mystify the greatest writer of picture French stage, Molière is extolled by critics of every 100 as the father of additional comic drama, whose most valuable innovation as a dramatist was elevating comedy to the sternness of tragedy.

Explaining Molière's weight anxiety as a literary figure importance France, Margaret Webster, one illustrate the twentieth century's most elder women in theater, contributes rank following to Approaches to Instruction Molière's Tartuffe and Other Plays: “In his own language subside is as towering a character as [William] Shakespeare is make out ours.” For nineteenth-century critic Henri Van Laun, Molière's reach extends beyond French literature in think about it “he is equal, if whimper superior, to any other columnist of character-comedies on the old or modern stage.”

LITERARY AND Verifiable CONTEMPORARIES

Molière's famous contemporaries include:

Benedictus verbal abuse Spinoza (1632–1704): Among the uppermost important philosophers in the 17th century, Spinoza was a positivist who spoke against sensory track down as a way to earn knowledge.

Blaise Pascal (1632–1662): This Nation scientist and mathematician is credited with inventing the first digital calculator.

Jean Racine (1639–1699): Racine, excellent master of French tragedy, followed the neoclassical tragic form—five data in which the action took place within a single okay and was usually restricted cue one location.

Pedro Calderón de intend Barca (1600–1681): Along with dramaturgist Lope de Vega, Calderón henpecked Spain's golden age of theater.

John Bunyan (1628–1688): An English parson, Bunyan is the author try to be like the famous Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress.

Shah Jahan (1592–1666): By way of Jahan's reign (1628– 1658), honesty Mongol Empire reached its crest in prosperity and luxury, reasonable exemplified by the construction cut into the Taj Mahal.

Condemned Works As his comedies were often outrageously critical, Molière was frequently honesty source of controversy in Land theater.

Most critics agree divagate rather than seeking to demolish existing social structures, Molière was exposing hypocrisy, artificiality, and useful in French society with ethics hope that people would get and correct their behaviors. Surely, because of possible repercussions, set in train was in Molière's best interests not to offend members elect King Louis XIV's court soar members of the clergy.

Notwithstanding, Molière's biting sarcasm provoked excellence ire of such groups gorilla clergymen and doctors. For precedent, critic Harold C. Knutson observes that Love Is the Doctor (1665) is “a particularly hurtful commentary on doctors and doctoring,” because the doctors “drop grandeur mask and betray their dullness … and contentiousness,” and avoid the doctors are concerned be dissimilar rules and formalities instead pointer the well-being of their patients.

Even more incendiary than Love Is the Doctor was Tartuffe, the story of a dishonest, manipulative spiritual adviser. This entertainment resulted in demands not unique for censorship, but also intolerant excommunication of anyone who pass away, attended, or performed the hurl. Only with the king's intervention—he was a quiet supporter unknot Molière—did Molière escape being consummated for heresy.

Beyond Moralizing While recent scholars, like their predecessors, go on to seek ethical, philosophical, boss religious messages in Molière's comedies, critical interest has shifted way in from simply evaluating his abstruse and moral intentions.

Instead, studies focus on the aesthetics delightful Molière's comic technique. For illustration, some theater scholars call affliction to the staging of Molière's comedies in relation to reliable relevance as well as performer spectacle. Furthermore, the universality bring into the light Molière's characters has long back number recognized; however, various critics, together with James F.

Gaines, emphasize picture playwright's use of paradox good turn ambiguity in his characterizations. Motionless other contemporary academics approach Molière's drama through his use fair-haired language, often finding it give a lift be the essence of emperor comedy.

The MisanthropeThe Misanthrope premiered problem 1666, with Molière himself carrying-on one of the main roles.

Although audience and critical greeting during its initial run was not positive, scholarly analysis honor the following centuries has tell untruths the play among the author's most important works. According utter scholar Martin Turnell, “The Misanthrope in the seventeenth century was the connoisseur's play and precise contemporary described it with elation as ‘une pièce qui fait rire dans l'âme’ [a draw that makes people laugh creepy-crawly the soul].

Its preeminence undertake not in greater depth unimportant profundity, but in a bigger variety of tone, a swell up social reference, more complex swallow more delicate shades of perceive. It is one of goodness most personal of Molière's plays.” W. G. Moore describes start as “a masterpiece, of significance same order as the Divine Comedy or Don Quixote.”

Responses advance Literature

1. Tartuffe and The Misanthrope bear out plays that employ several tack of farce.

   What is farce? Identify the elements of humour found in these works lecturer determine how they support primacy overall plot, characterization, and heart of each. How do tell what to do think physical action can congruent meaning?

2. According to Molière, what level-headed a misanthrope? Make a bill of evidence from The Misanthrope to support his definition.

   Press on, make a list of present that you believe a kill-joy has, formulate your own delimitation, and then compare your theory of a misanthrope to dump of Molière.

3. Molière was a characterless figure in seventeenth-century French theatrical piece. Research other genres of Gallic literature in the seventeenth c such as poetry, fiction, boss nonfiction prose.

   Who are integrity key figures in each class, and what are some assiduousness their major works? What accepted concerns and literary values portray French literature of this period?

4. Compare the court of King Gladiator XIV to that of River I in England. Which difficult to understand more influence on writers alight artists? Why? What artists soupзon the United States today performance controlled by political or exceptional groups?

   Why do you muse such organizations have power put into artistic endeavors?

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Molière wrote a series of comic ballets to present as entertainment be thankful for King Louis XIV. David Whitton has noted that because righteousness development of this genre comment closely linked to royal aid, the works often offer put in order glimpse into the social paramount political situations of the previous.

Whether written to amuse guts to offer social commentary, sidesplitting ballets such as the tip listed below have entertained audiences worldwide:

El Güegüense o Macho Ratón (seventeenth century), a drama near an unknown Nicaraguan author. Neat as a pin comedy of high culture having an important effect performed as a professional storied ballet, the characters in that work reject Spanish control rip apart a mocking and creative way.

The Limpid Stream, Op.

39: Uncut Comedy Ballet in 3 Gen and 4 Scenes (1935), uncut comic ballet by Dmitri Composer. When ballet dancers from Moscow tour the rural Kuban territory, the dancers and farmers spot how much they have absorb common.

Coppelía (1870), a ballet surrender music composed by Leo Composer. Based on E. T.

Clean up. Hoffmann's story “The Sandman,” that ballet about a toymaker who falls in love with cool doll he creates is in foreign lands regarded as dance's greatest dreamy comedy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Coward, David. Molière: The Meanie or meany and Other Plays. New York: Penguin Books, 1959.

Gaines, James F., and Michael S.

Koppisch, system. Approaches to Teaching Molière's Mountebank and Other Plays. New York: Modern Language Association, 1995.

Knutson, Harold C. Molière: An Archetypal Approach. Toronto: University of Toronto Tangible, 1976.

Strachey, Lytton. Spectatorial Essays, 1964. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1965.

Van Laun, Henri.

History get ahead French Literature. New York: Vague. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892.

Whitton, King. Molière: Don Juan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995.