This mixed-media depiction of Harlequin, by Russian artist Kasyan Yaroslavovitch Golejzovsky, was sold at an auction, in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 9 November 2017. I congratulate its owners. I love this work of art for many reasons. For instance, movement is beautifully expressed. Would that I had the money to bid and buy at auctions. However, I visit, if only to see beautiful objects.
Harlequin is a zanno (zanni), a comic servant, who was introduced into the Commedia dell’arte by 17th – century actor – manager Zan Ganassa (c. 1540 – c. 1584): Zan (=zanni) Ganassa. Commedia dell’ arte actors were professionals. They were provided with an outline of the comedy (called a canevas in French), where they played a role, always the same role, which they improvised. The Italians travelled to other countries. Ganassa was in Spain from 1574 to 1584. Paris had its Comédie-Italienne, and Harlequin was in 18th – century London.
In the commedia erudita, however, actors used a script written by a playwright. Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, Molière and dramatists preceding them often drew their material from Plautus (254 BCE [Sarsinia, Umbria, Italy] – BCE 154)[1]and Terence (195 BCE [Carthage, current Tunisia] – 159 BCE [Greece or at sea]).[2] Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence wrote in Latin, but the vernacular, early forms of Italian, was also used by actors. However, Plautus and Terence, found their inspiration in Greek New Comedy (320 BCE to the mid 3rd century BCE), from which they also borrowed. Molière‘s Miser (1668) is rooted in Plautus’ Aulularia.
Harlequin is perhaps the best-known of the commedia dell’arte’s zanni and one of its most celebrated characters. Harlequin always wears a costume. It is part of the mask, but behind the mask there is a man, or a woman. Until the creation of Pierrot, drawn from both pantomimes and the commedia dell’arte, the stock characters of the commediadell’arte seemed what they appeared.
However, Pierrot, created in late 17th – century France, by the Parisian Comédie-Italienne, is a sad clown, a mask wearing a mask. He entertains an audience, but he loves Columbina who loves Harlequin. This is love’s triangle, an impossible love that may feed on jealousy. As the 17thcentury drew to a close in France, Madame de la Fayette[3] published La Princesse de Clèves, in which her heroine will not marry Monsieur de Nemours for fear he will stop loving her once his love is reciprocated. Jean Racine‘s Phèdrefails to save Hippolyte, whom she has falsely accused of trying to seduce her, when she learns Hippolyte claims to love Aricie. La Princesse de Clèveswas published in 1678, the year after Phèdre was first performed.
The Duel after the Masquerade by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In this respect, he is perhaps the most enigmatic character of the commedia dell’arte, and the most human. Jealous love finds its best expression in a novel by Madame de La Fayette,La Princesse de Clèves(1678). But Molière’s Arnolphe, the blocking-character in The School for Wives, L’École des femmes, is jealous. The Gelosi (jealous) were also a commedia dell’ arte troupe, but jealous love is not associated with the Gelosi. In Britannica, we read that:
“The name was derived from the troupe’s motto, Virtù, fama ed honor ne fèr gelosi. (“We are jealous of attaining virtue, fame and honour”).[4]
Commedia dell’arte troupe, probably depicting Isabella Andreini and the Compagnia dei Gelosi, oil … CFL—Giraudon/Art Resource, New York (Photo credit: Britannica)
For instance, Rousseau criticized Molière’s Misanthrope, because the playwright had juxtaposed in one character, Alceste, “l’homme de bien” (the good man) and “l’homme emporté” (the angry man).Professor Jules Brody has described Alceste and Dom Juan as “morally” in the right but “esthetically” in the wrong.[2] Alceste is right when he says about courtiers that they are not necessarily sincere. However, we also know that an angry Alceste criticizes courtiers because he cannot tell whether or not they are sincere when they pay him a compliment. This is the reason why Rousseau called him “unhomme emporté [angry].” Alceste gets angry.
The faults Alceste found in courtiers were frequently very real, but a superficial reading of the Misanthrope or limited exposure to the play do not allow the reader or spectator to realize that Alceste himself needs to be validated to such an extent that genuine praise and compliments are as important to him as a seemingly devout Tartuffe is to Orgon (Tartuffe). Alceste threatens to leave Paris and live in a desert, a location outside Paris, and will not marry Célimène unless she follows him, which she cannot and will not do. After he has settled in a desert, Alceste will probably forever return to court, or, metaphorically, to Célimène. At the end of the Misanthrope, the curtain falls on an empty stage. Philinte, Le Misanthrope‘s raisonneur, and Éliante, a woman Alceste could have married but will marry Philinte, are leaving so they to can help Alceste.
François Boucher (dessins ) & Laurent Cars (gravures) Le Tartuffe; L’Avare L’École des femmes; La Critique de l’École des femmes
Le Tartuffe by François Boucher
L’Avare by François Boucher & Laurent Cars
L’École des femmes
La Critique de l’École des femmes
Children wishing their father were dead
In L’Avare, Molière also created characters wishing the death of Harpagon, a tyrannical miser. In the best of all possible worlds, children love their parents and parents love their children. Harpagon, however, loves his money more than he loves his children, Cléante and Élise. Before the anagnorisis, Mariane, who loves Cléante, Harpagon’s son, tells Frosine, a matchmaker, that she wishes Harpagon were dead, which she says is strange. Cléante also wishes his father were dead and tells his valet La Flèche. Yet, despite his cruelty, Harpagon remains a father and his children resent finding fault with him.
Mon Dieu, Frosine, c’est une étrange affaire, lorsque pour être heureuse, il faut souhaiter ou attendre le trépas de quelqu’un, et la mort ne suit pas tous les projets que nous faisons. (Mariane à Frosine, III. iv)
[Oh, Frosine! What a strange state of things that, in order to be happy, we must look forward to the death of another. Yet death will not fall in with all the projects we make.] [Mariane to Frosine, III. 8]
Que veux-tu que j’y fasse ? Voilà où les jeunes gens sont réduits par la maudite avarice des pères ; et on s’étonne après cela que les fils souhaitent qu’ils meurent. (Cléante à La Flèche, II. i)
[What would you have me do? It is to this that young men are reduced by the accursed avarice of their fathers; and people are astonished after that, that sons long for their death.] [Cléante to La Flèche, II. 1] [eBook #6923]
Rousseau is indignant:[3]
« C’est un grand vice assurément d’être avare et de prêter à usure, mais n’en est-ce pas un plus grand encore à un fils de voler son père, de lui manquer de respect, de lui faire les plus insultants reproches, et quand ce père irrité lui donne sa malédiction, de répondre d’un air goguenard, qu’il n’a que faire de ses dons ? Si la plaisanterie est excellente en est-elle moins punissable ? Et la pièce où l’on fait aimer le fils insolent qui l’a faite, en est-elle moins une école de mauvaises mœurs ? »
[It is no doubt a fault to be a miser and a usurer, but isn’t it a greater fault for a son to rob his father and to be disrespectful towards him, to heap upon him insulting blame and, when this irritated father curses him, to answer mockingly that he has no use for his gifts? If the joke is witty, is it less punishable? And is the play where the father is depicted as a loving father, any less a school for vice?]
Yet, after it is revealed that Anselme is Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, Valère and Mariane’s wealthy father, the miser is so happy to learn that his cassette will be returned to him that he abandons his project to remarry. His son Cléante will marry Mariane, Dom Thomas d’Alburcy’s daughter and the woman Harpagon wished to take as a wife.
Dom Juan: le Grand Seigneur méchant homme
Dom Juan is a Grand Seigneur méchant homme, a great lord and a bad man who is felled by heaven itself. In his duality, Dom Juan resembles Le Misanthrope‘s Alceste, homme de bien and homme emporté (Rousseau). In fact, in Dom Juan, a masterful Molière created a dark version of his apparently virtuous Alceste, the misanthrope. Célimène, whom Alceste wishes to marry, belongs not to a corrupt as much as a frivolous court. Molière will not condemn court altogether. The courtiers Célimène’s portraits amuse have read Charles Sorel‘s Lois de la galanterie. Moreover, she knows that when age has tarnished her charm, she may well be a prude, a role, or function, played by the Misanthrope‘s Arsinoé. The world Arsinoé criticizes is the very world that had been sustenance to her in earlier and better years.
Il est une saison pour la galanterie, Il en est une, aussi, propre à la pruderie ; On peut, par politique, en prendre le parti, Quand de nos jeunes ans, l’éclat est amorti ; Cela sert à couvrir de fâcheuses disgrâces. (Célimène à Arsinoé, III. iii, 975 – 79)
[There is an age for love-affairs, methinks,
And there’s an age that’s fit for prudery.
It may be policy to choose the second
When youth is gone and all its glamour faded,
For that may serve to hide a sorry downfall.] [Célimène to Arsinoé, III. 3]
As for Dom Juan himself, he has redeeming features. He is not the demonic figure his valet Sganarelle describes to Dom Gusman, Elvira’s horseman, in the first act of Dom Juan:
[m]ais par précaution, je t’apprends (inter nos,) que tu vois en Dom Juan, mon maître, le plus grand scélérat que la terre ait jamais porté, un enragé, un chien, un diable, un Turc, un hérétique, qui ne croit ni Ciel, ni Enfer, ni loup-garou, qui passe cette vie en véritable bête brute, en pourceau d’Epicure,en vrai Sardanapale, qui ferme l’oreille à toutes les remontrances qu’on lui peut faire, et traite de billevesées tout ce que nous croyons. (Sganarelle à Don Gusman, I. i)
[Still, as a warning, inter nos, I would teach you that you will find in Don Juan, my master, the greatest renegade that the earth has ever endured, a wild man, a dog, a devil, a Turk, a heretic, who does not believe in Heaven, Hell, or the Wolf-man, who disports in this life as a thoroughly brute beast, a pig of Epicurus, a true Sardanapalus, who closes his ears to all Christian remonstrances that one could make to him, and treats all that we believe as empty words.] [Sganarelle to Don Gusman, I. 1, p. 3]
However when Dom Juan enters, he asks Sganarelle if perhaps the person who was speaking to him could have been Done Elvire’s “good” Gusman:
Quel homme te parlait là, Il a bien de l’air ce me semble du bon Gusman de Done Elvire ? (I. ii)
Who were you just speaking to? He looked a little like the good Gusman of Donna Elvira. [Dom Juan to Sganarelle, I. 2, p. 4]
Molière’s Dom Juan has left his home and his wife, so all is not lost.
His single crime, after all, consists not in having lured Done Elvire out of her convent, but, rather, in having married and abandoned her. (Brody, p. 568)
The difficulty lies in the fact that Dom Juan cannot love a person who loves him.[4] He must feel jealous. If he does not fear losing a woman he loves, he cannot love. Molière’s Dom Juan is more of a jaloux than he is a seducer.
Mais lorsqu’on en est maître une fois, il n’y a plus rien à dire ni rien à souhaiter ; tout le beau de la passion est fini, et nous nous endormons dans la tranquillité d’un tel amour, si quelque objet nouveau ne vient réveiller nos désirs, et présenter à notre cœur les charmes. (I. ii) [But let us be master once, nothing more is left to say or to wish; the beautiful part of passion is done, and we would sink into the tranquility of such a love, if some new object did not come to awaken our desires, and present to our heart the alluring charms of another conquest.] [I. 2, p. 6]
Conclusion
Rousseau questioned the morality of theatre and in particular Molière’s Misanthrope and Miser, L’Avare (1668). Rousseau wrote to d’Alembert when a theatre was under construction in Geneva. It was a private letter, but d’Alembert published it. As noted above, a first or superficial reading of Molière’s plays, Le Misanthrope in particular, may bring confusion as to the morality of his comedies. So could attending one performance of both Dom Juan (1665) and Le Misanthrope (1666). The rapidity inherent to performances may condition a text.
Reading plays and examining such elements as their structure is more likely tolead to a better grasp of their meaning. The doubling of functions,the intervention of a deus ex machina, ananagnorisis, the use of a pharmakos(a scapegoat), incongruities, and other factors may be extremely revealing.A title, such as Dom Juan, may also condition a play. Dom Juan is a reputed seducer, but Molière’s Dom Juan is unconvincing in this regard (see II. 1-5, pp. 12-28). He is not as Sganarelle depicts him. Returning home to his wife could rehabilitate him. However, he has killed the commandeur and his name is Dom Juan. He is therefore invited to a festin de pierre, a feast of stones. Led by the Statue, he is engulfed into an abyss.
In short, Molière’s plays may skirt what is deemed unacceptable. He did have to rewrite his Tartuffe twice because it was considered an attack on devotion, rather than an attack on hypocrisy. However, hypocrisy was attacked and the hypocrite, Tartuffe, used casuistry shortly after the publication of Blaise Pascal‘s Lettres provinciales, written in 1656-1657.
As for L’Avare, Harpagon is forcing his daughter Élise to marry Anselme while he, the miser, marries Mariane, who loves Cléante, Harpagon’s son. Were it not for an anagnorisis and the kindness of Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, Valère and Mariane’s reportedly lost father, Élise and Mariane may have had to enter a forced marriage.
Yet, Rousseau’s critique of Molière is not to be trivialized. It had the benefit of introducing a very long discussion on an enigmatic Molière. In Dom Juan, the jeune premier, the young man who wishes to marry, Dom Juan himself, marries and leaves his wife before the play begins. He will not give money to the poor unless he swears (III. ii) [III. 2, p. 34] and he challenges God Himself. He will settle his dues with God.
Va, va, c’est une affaire entre le Ciel et moi, et nous la démêlerons bien ensemble, sans que tu t’en mettes en peine. (Dom Juan à Sganarelle, I. ii)
[That’s enough. It’s an issue between Heaven and me, and we get along just fine without bothering yourself about it.] [Dom Juan to Sganarelle. I. 2, p. 7]
In remote antiquity, the old king may have been put to death leaving room for a new generation, a younger society. This happened on the day of the longest night, the winter Solstice. French 17th-century comedies kept alive the spirit of the Kōmos, a “drunken procession” and the Saturnalia, an equinoctial reversal of roles. (See Wikipedia.)
____________________ [1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lettre à M. d’Alembert, in Du Contrat social (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1962), p. 154. [2] Jules Brody, “Don Juan” and “Le Misanthrope,” or The Esthetics of Individualism in Molière, PMLA 84 (1969), pp. 559 -576. [3] See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, op. cit. [4]Madame de La Fayette‘s La Princesse de Clèves (1678), a novel, is the finest French 17th- century portrayal of jealous love. [5] Anne Ubersfeld, Lire le théâtre (Paris : Éditions sociales, 1978).
As indicated in a previous post, Molière‘s L’Avare, The Miser, was first performed on 9 September 1668 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. It is a five-act play, in prose, inspired by Roman dramatist Plautus‘ (254 – 148 BCE) Aulularia, the Pot of Gold. As we have seen, it is also rooted in the commedia dell’arte as well as Italian comedies and tales, and in France’s own medieval farces and the largely scatologicalfabliaux.
However, Molière also drew his material from La Belle Plaideuse (1655), by François le Métel de Boisrobert, which features a father-as-usurer, and Jean Donneau de Visé‘s La Mère coquette (1665), where a father and son are in love with the same woman.[1]
L’Avare is one of Molière’s better-known comedies and it was translated into English by Thomas Shadwell (1772) and Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones. However, it was not a huge success in Molière’s own days. It has been speculated that Molière’s audience expected a play written in verse, the nobler alexandrine verse (12 feet or syllables), first used in the twelfth century Roman d’Alexandre.
Harpagon, father toCléante, in love withMariane. Cléante, Harpagon’sson, lover toMarianne. Valère, son toAnselme, lover toÉlise, and “intendant” to Harpagon Anselme / Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, father toValèreandMariane, and Master Simon, broker. Master Jacques, cook and coachman toHarpagon. La Flèche, valet toCléante. Brindavoine, andLa Merluche, lackeys toHarpagon. A Magistrateand hisClerk. Élise, daughter toHarpagon. Mariane, daughter toAnselme. Frosine, an intriguing woman. Mistress Claude, servant toHarpagon.
The scene is at Paris, in Harpagon’s house.
Act One
We will be focusing on the manner in which the young couples featured in the Miser, L’Avare, manage to overcome the obstacle to their marriage. Short of a miracle, they are condemned to do as their father’s greed dictates. All the elements of L’Avare’s plot are introduced in the first act of the play, which reflects the Græco-Roman origins of comedy and tragedy. As a five-act play, Molière’s L’Avare is a ‘grande comédie,’ not a farce (Molière wrote both), and its plot is the archetypal struggle, also called the agôn, between, on the one hand, the alazôn of Greek comedy, or the blocking character, and, on the other hand, the eirôn, the young couple and their supporters: valets, maids, zanni. It other words, it is a traditional blondin-berne-barbon plot. The young couples will succeed in marrying.
A Comedy of Manners and A Comedy of Intrigue
doublings: two young couples and two fathers
Harpagon is the father of Élise and Cléante
Anselme is Valère and Mariane’s father, which we do not know until the fifth act (V. v) of the comedy
L’Avare is both a comedy of manners, a form we inherited mostly from Greek dramatist Menander, and a comédie d’intrigue, a comedy where the plot prevails. As the portrayal of a miser, L’Avare is a comedy of manners (see the full text in Wikisource and eBook #6923). Harpagon’s greed constitutes the obstacle to the marriage of Cléante (Harpagon) and Mariane as well as the marriage of Valère and Élise (Harpagon).
Cléante gambles and wins, which allows him to buy elegant clothes and court Mariane, but he does not have sufficient money to marry and must therefore go to a moneylender. Ironically, the moneylender happens to be Harpagon himself who demands no less than the now metaphorical “pound of flesh” (Shylock) as repayment. The moneylender episode—act two, scene two (II. i) [II. 2]—shows to what extent Harpagon’s greed is an obstacle to the marriage of our young couples. The plot advances in that Cléante cannot obtain a loan that might enable his marriage. Another “trick” must be devised. However, plot and manners (greed) are inextricably woven.
Obstacles to Two Marriages
“genre” art
a family tyrant
The action takes place in Harpagon’s house in Paris and can be described as genre art, a depiction of ordinary people engaged in ordinary activities. Will G Moore has remarked that Molière’s characters
“[a]re concerned with everyday life; the stuff of which it was made was by tradition the doings of ordinary people in ordinary surroundings.”[2]
Our blocking character is an enriched bourgeois. Although he does not feed his horse properly, he owns a carriage and he has servants. As depicted by François Boucher, the interior of his house is rather elegant. However, he is extremely greedy and he therefore, who behaves as though he owned his children. He is a domestic tyrant. In act one, Harpagon states that he has arranged for his children to marry, but has not consulted them. Cléante will marry a “certain widow,” our tyrant has just heard of, and Élise will be “given” to Mr Anselme, a gentleman who will not request the customary dowry, or “sans dot”
Quant à ton frère, je lui destine une certaine veuve dont ce matin on m’est venu parler; et, pour toi, je te donne au seigneur Anselme. (Harpagon to Élise, [I. iv])
[As to your brother, I have thought for him of a certain widow, of whom I heard this morning; and you I shall give to Mr. Anselme. [1. 6] [eBook #6923]
Élise does not know Mr Anselme and refuses to marry him, threatening to commit suicide. As for Harpagon, he plans to marry Mariane, who loves his son (Cléante). For Harpagon, Mr Anselme is a perfect choice because Élise will marry at no cost to the miser: “sans dot.” (I. iv FR) (I. 6 EN)
Harpagon’s Rigidity
Valère will attempt to save Élise from a marriage to a person other than himself. Valère, Harpagon’s “intendant,” begs Harpagon to free Élise. However, the objections he presents are followed by Harpagon’s “sans dot” (without a dowry). Molière’s blocking characters are inflexible or rigid. This rigidity is the feature Henri Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) attached to the comical or comedic in his Laughter. Valère’s objections having been rebuked by a litany of “sans dot,” he is literally speechless. He simply repeats what the Harpagon, the miser, has told him:
Lorsqu’on s’offre de prendre une fille sans dot, on ne doit point regarder plus avant. Tout est renfermé là-dedans, et sans dot tient lieu de beauté, de jeunesse, de naissance, d’honneur, de sagesse, et de probité. (Valère à Harpagon, I. v)
[When a man offers to marry a girl without a dowry, we ought to look no farther. Everything is comprised in that, and “without dowry” compensates for want of beauty, youth, birth, honour, wisdom, and probity.] (I. 10) [eBook #6923]
But there is some hope. As the story goes, Valère’s father, Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, is believed to have drowned when he and his family (his wife, Valère and Mariane) were fleeing Naples. It appears, however, that Dom Thomas has survived and that he is a man of means. Valère was looking for him when he met Élise. At her request, he decided to stay near her and made himself Harpagon’s “intendant,” but someone else is looking for Valère’s father.
Mais enfin, si je puis, comme je l’espère, retrouver mes parents, nous n’aurons pas beaucoup de peine à nous le rendre favorable. J’en attends des nouvelles avec impatience, et j’en irai chercher moi-même, si elles tardent à venir. (I. i)
[However, if I can find my parents, as I fully hope I shall, they will soon be favourable to us. I am expecting news of them with great impatience; but if none comes I will go in search of them myself.] [I, 1]
The curtain will then fall on an anagnorisis (V. v) [V. 5], a recognition scene. However, when Anselme enters Harpagon’s house and hears that there is opposition to the contract he has come to sign, he tells Harpagon that he will not coerce a woman into a mariage, which frees Élise. He also remarks that he will not “lay claim to a heart which has already bestowed itself,” thereby allowing Mariane, his daughter, to marry Cléante, Harpagon’s son, rather than Harpagon.
Ce n’est pas mon dessein de me faire épouser par force, et de rien prétendre à un cœur qui se serait donné ; mais pour vos intérêts, je suis prêt à les embrasser ainsi que les miens propres. (Anselme to Harpagon [V. v])
[It is not my intention to force anybody to marry me, and to lay claim to a heart which has already bestowed itself; but as far as your interests are concerned, I am ready to espouse them as if they were my own.] (V. 5) [eBook #6923]
Anselme seems a fine gentleman whom the anagnorisis(V. v) [V. 5], the dénouement (see Dramatic Structure, Wikipedia), will identify as Valère and Mariane’s father. A greedy Harpagon has chosen Anselme as the perfect groom because Anselme would marry Élise without requesting the customary dowry, or at no cost to the miser: “sans dot.” (I. v) [1. 5 ]
Qu’il faut manger pour vivre, et non pas vivre pour manger. (III. i)
Harpagon’s greed is enormous, so students are taught that Molière concentrates on manners rather than the plot. He does, but in L’Avare, although the plot is mainly episodic, manners and plot (intrigue) are inextricably linked. For instance, when Harpagon is having a meal prepared to celebrate the marriage(s) that are to take place that very day, Harpagon hears Valère say that il faut manger pour vivre and not vivre pour manger, that one should eat to live and not live to eat, Harpagon so loves Valère’s witty chiasmus, that he wants these words engraved in gold and placed above his fireplace. (III. i) [III. 1] It is unlikely that Harpagon would use gold to celebrate greed, but it is true to character and comical. The meal he is planning often ends comedies and may solemnize a wedding.
Moreover, it is a quiproquo, a comical misunderstanding which, in L’Avare, leads to the anagnorisis. When Harpagon realizes his cassette has disappeared and may have been stolen, he loses his composure and accuses Valère, at the instigation of Maître Jacques. Maître Jacques resents the trust Harpagon has placed in Valère. If he could, Harpagon would have Valère drawn and quartered. Valère has not stolen Harpagon’s cassette, but he and Élise have signed a promise to marry another. Valère has ‘robbed’ Harpagon, but it is Élise he has taken, not a cassette. (V. iii & iv) [V. 3 & 4] [eBook #6923]
Anselme first steps foot on the stage as the battle rages. Given Élise’s promise, he cannot and would not marry her. However, Valère stands accused of a theft and wants to tell his story. The anagnorisis has now begun. To give himself credibility, Valère says that he is the son of Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, which Anselme hesitates to believe because he is a friend of Dom Those and, to his knowledge, all members of Dom Thomas’ family drowned as they were trying to flee Naples, which is not the case.Valère says that he was rescued by Pedro, a servant, and later adopted by the captain of the ship he and Pedro were allowed to board. He can prove his identity. As he speaks, Mariane realizes that Valère is her brother.
For their part, Mariane and her mother were also saved, but their helpers were corsaires, pirates, who enslaved them. Following ten years of enslavement, they were released and they returned to Naples where they could not find Dom Thomas d’Alburcy. They therefore picked up a small inheritance in Genoa and moved to Paris. Mariane’s mother is Valère’s mother and Dom Thomas d’Alburcy’s wife. As he watches this scene, Dom Thomas learns that no member of his family died leaving Naples. He has just found his children and his wife. He would not stand in the way of Valère and Mariane’s marriage who wish to marry Harpagon’s children. Le sieur Anselme knows le sieur Harpagon.
Le Ciel, mes enfants, ne me redonne point à vous, pour être contraire à vos vœux. Seigneur Harpagon, vous jugez bien que le choix d’une jeune personne tombera sur le fils plutôt que sur le père. Allons, ne vous faites point dire ce qu’il n’est point nécessaire d’entendre, et consentez ainsi que moi à ce double hyménée. (V. v)
[Heaven, my dear children, has not restored you to me that I might oppose your wishes. Mr. Harpagon, you must be aware that the choice of a young girl is more likely to fall upon the son than upon the father. Come, now, do not force people to say to you what is unnecessary, and consent, as I do, to this double marriage.] [V. 5] [eBook #6923]
Doublings
Molière’s L’Avare has an intrigue which resembles the intrigue of most comedies. A young couple wishes to marry, but a blocking character, or alazôn, prevents their marriage. However, Molière has doubled the young couple who are a brother and sister wishing to marry a brother and a sister, so Molière has therefore doubled the father figure which happens during the anagnorisis. As Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, Anselme is the eirôn who allows the young couples to marry.
The anagnorisis, the recognition scene, does not take place unannounced. As mentioned earlier, as he despairs,Valère tells Élise that he hopes to find his father who may still be alive. Act one (I. i) [I. 1] has prepared the reader or spectator:
Mais enfin, si je puis comme je l’espère, retrouver mes parents, nous n’aurons pas beaucoup de peine à nous le rendre favorable. (Valère à Élise, I. i)
[However, if I can find my parents, as I fully hope I shall, they will soon be favourable to us.] [I. 1] [eBook #6923]
Der Geizigue, Harpagon & La Flèche by August Wilhelm Iffland, 1810 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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In L’Avare, Molière does not use a deus ex machina. He simply introduces a second father figure who will allow the young couples to marry and will pay all costs. L’Avare‘s young couple are in fact very resourceful, but one cannot marry without money. Mariane (Dom Thomas) recoils at wishing Harpagon’s death, feelings that are reciprocated by Cléante (Harpagon).
Mon Dieu, Frosine, c’est une étrange affaire, lorsque pour être heureuse, il faut souhaiter ou attendre le trépas de quelqu’un, et la mort ne suit pas tous les projets que nous faisons. (Mariane à Frosine, III. iv)
[Oh, Frosine! What a strange state of things that, in order to be happy, we must look forward to the death of another. Yet death will not fall in with all the projects we make.] [III. 8] [eBook #6923]
Que veux-tu que j’y fasse ? Voilà où les jeunes gens sont réduits par la maudite avarice des pères ; et on s’étonne après cela que les fils souhaitent qu’ils meurent. (II. i)
[What would you have me do? It is to this that young men are reduced by the accursed avarice of their fathers; and people are astonished after that, that sons long for their death.] [II. 1] [eBook #6923]
When his father falls, accidentally, Cléante is worried:
Qu’est-ce, mon père, vous êtes-vous fait mal ? (III. ix)
[What’s the matter, father? Have you hurt yourself?] [III. 14] [eBook #6923]
Critic Northrop Frye states that “[t]he tendency of comedy is to include as many people as possible in its final society: the blocking characters are more often reconciled or converted than simply repudiated.”[3]
As for Harpagon, although he may he has been tyrannical, when Dom Thomas and the young couples leave to bring good news to Dom Thomas’ wife, Harpagon is off to see his dear cassette. His cassette, a casket, his vital to Harpagon.
Et moi, voir ma chère cassette. (I. vi)
And I to see my dear casket. [1. 6] [eBook #6923]
Conclusion
I have already suggested that Molière uses doubling and fusion of functions.[4] Harpagon is a miser and will remain a miser ready to sacrifice his children. It is a sad reflection on humanity but perhaps less sad than the intervention of a deus ex machina. Dom Thomas d’Alburcy is a major member of the play’s society, the intervention of a second father figure allows the happy ending the play demands. An anagnorisis may not be as dazzling a dénouement as the intervention of a deus ex machina, the prince in Tartuffe and a godlike figure inDom Juan, but all’s well that ends well.
The Miser is a Wikisource eBook (Charles Heron Wall, translator) The Miser is an Internet Archive publication EN The Miser is a Project Gutenberg publication [eBook #6923] EN The Miser, Henri Fielding is an eText EN L’Avare is a Molière21 (Tout Molière) internet publication FR (cliquer sur Liens = Tout Molière = L’Avare) FR Molière21is a research group Le Salon littéraire FR The Miser is a LibriVox text publication (YouTube) Laughter, Henri Bergson is an Internet Archive publication EN
____________________ [1]L’Avare in Maurice Rat, Œuvres complètes de Molière (Paris : Éditions Gallimard, coll. La Pléiade, 1956), p. 968. [2]Will G. Moore, Molière, a New Criticism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1968 [1949], pp. 69-7o. [3] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1957]), p. 165. [4]Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « Le Misanthrope,oula comédie éclatée, » in David Trott & Nicole Boursier, eds. L’Âge du théâtre en France (Edmonton, Alberta: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1988 ), 53 – 63. (papers from a conference held in Toronto, May 14 – 16, 1987)
In literature, miserliness is not necessarily associated with considerable wealth. Misers are persons who feel comforted by their money and may enter into a fit of rage or collapse when they lose money. For Molière‘s Harpagon, a literary miser featured inL’Avare, money is as dear to him as his very life. In other words, for Harpagon, Molière’s miser, money is no less than Shylock’s “pound of flesh.” In comedies, miserliness may be an obstacle to a young couple’s mariage.
Molière’s Harpagon is a fine example of literary miserliness, but as a blocking character he is not boastful, which is the case with L’École des femmes‘ Arnolphe, who is certain he will never be un cocu, cuckolded, and Tartuffe’s Orgon, who can be tyrannical with impunity. Tartuffe takes sin out of sinning. Pantalone is the miser of the commedia dell’arteand he is also boastful, which leads to ridicule, the worst of fate.
L’Avare: in a Nutshell
Harpagon: the miser
Anselme: an older gentleman
Élise and Cléante: Harpagon’s children
Mariane and Valère: Anselme’s children
But let us return to Molière’s Miser. Harpagon is a blocking character and greed is the flaw that jeopardizes the marriage of the young lovers: two couples. Molière’s miser does not want to give a dowry to his daughter Élise. He wishes to marry her to a person who will take her without the usual dowry. Anselme, a fine gentleman, will marry her “sans dot” (without a dowry). Very few men married women who did not bring a dowry. As for his son, Cléante, Harpagon would like him to marry a widow. In 17th-century France, widows had a freedom and privileges daughters or married women did not enjoy. Widows had money, their dowry, but also wealth inherited from their deceased spouse. They could choose their second spouse or choose not to marry. A widow would be a perfect spouse for Cléante. She would look after him.
Élise’s friend Valère hopes to find his father, in which case he would be rich. A kind destiny may save him. Anselme is Valère’s father. In theory, his father drowned. As for Cléante, he hopes to be able to live elsewhere with Mariane, whom his father wants to marry. It will turn out that Mariane is Anselme‘s daughter who will ensure she marries Cléante. In other words, there an anagnorisis (a discovery)which will save both Valère (Élise) and Mariane (Cléante). Anselme is the father Valère is looking for and Mariane’s father. As for Harpagon, he will think he has lost a buried treasure, but it is concealed, not stolen. Cléante’s valet La Flèche has found it and confiscated it. When Harpagon is reunited with his treasure, a cassette reminiscent of Orgon’s cassette (Tartuffe), he is delighted and abandons plans to marry.
In short, when it is proven that Anselme is Valère’s father as well as Mariane’s father and Mariane’s mother’s husband, the young couples may marry. There is sufficient money. Anselme will pay for all expenses. Besides, he has found his wife, whom he thought had drowned.
We will continue and perhaps finish looking at L’Avare in my next post.
Shylock after the Trial,Sir John Gilbert(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Predecessors and Descendants of Molière’s L’Avare
Shylock (The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare) & predecessors
Séraphin (Un Homme et son péché by Claude-Henri Grignon)
Gesta Romanorum, Il Peconore, The Orator
My last post was about Molière’s Miser‘s ancestry. Molière’s L’Avare (The Miser) (1658) is rooted in Roman playwright Plautus’ Aululuria, The Pot of Gold. In the commedia dell’arte, Pantalone is the miser. However in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice(1596-1599), we meet Shylock, the Jewish money-lender and miser. Among works preceding Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Molière’s L’Avare, we should also mention Il Peconore,a collection of short stories by Giovanni Fiorentino (1378), published in Milan in 1558, and the Gesta Romanorum, a collection of Latin tales dating back to the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, one of which, the three caskets, inspired Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and The Orator, a tale or novella by Alexandre Sylvane, published in 1558 by Lodovico Domenichi and published in an English translation by William Painter, in 1596. (See Sources, The Merchant of Venice, Wikipedia.)
Literature has other misers closer to us. Scrooge, the protagonist of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol(1843) is a miser.The miser also inhabits fables.[1] “A Beirut Maronite(a Roman Catholic following the Syrio-Antiochene rite, widespread in the area),Mārūn al Naqqāsh(died 1855), who knew French and Italian as well as Arabic and Turkish, adaptedMolière’sL’Avare(“The Miser”) and presented it on a makeshift stage in Beirut in 1848.”[2]
In 1933, Claude Henri Grignon (8 July 1894 – 3 April 1976), a French-Canadian writer, journalist and politician, wrote a novel entitled Un Homme et son péché. The novel grew into one of the most popular Quebec radio serials, Un Homme et son péché. Later, it became a very successful television serial, entitled Les Belles Histoires des pays d’en haut (en haut is north). The musical theme of the television serial was a movement from Glazunov‘s Seasons: Autumn, Petit Adagio. Claude-Henri Grignon’s UnHomme et son péché also inspired a film: Séraphin: Heart of Stone,2002.
Jessica, TheMerchant of Venice by Luke Fildes
Conclusion
Literature has types, prototypes and archetypes (see Jungian archetypes, Wikipedia). These figures are universal and describe, in an intensive way, very real persons. One of Honoré de Balzac‘s Comédie humaine characters is Eugénie Grandet, a miser. The literary depiction of characters, or types, is rooted in Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BCE) who inspired La Bruyère (16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696), the author of Les Caractères (1688). Playwrights and writers, fabulists, in particular, have often depicted misers, occurrences of intertextuality. Misers usually meet with a sorry end, but Molière’s L’Avare doesn’t.
A depiction of Jessica, from The Graphic Gallery of Shakespeare’s Heroines, Luke Fildes (ill.), (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd. 1896) Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection
Pantalone (1550) by Maurice Sand(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Maurice Sand
Below is an excerpt from an article I posted in 2014, when our topic was the commedia dell’arte. Pantalone is a mask, a stock character. His name may differ from play to play, but his function, or role, does not change. He is the blocking character, or the obstacle to the marriage of comedy’s young lovers, the innamorati of the commedia dell’arte and, in the case of Pantalone, money prevents the marriages that comedy favours. He is an ancestor to Molière’s Harpagon, L’Avare‘s protagonist.
The portrait I am featuring above is by Maurice Sand, whose full name is Jean-François-Maurice-Arnauld, Baron Dudevant (1823–1889). He was the son of writer George Sand (1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), who separated from her husband, but brought up her son Maurice and daughter Solange (1828–1899). She may be the most colourful woman in 19th-century France and a prolific author. We will discuss George Sand in a future post.
Maurice Sand’s depiction of Pantalone is delightful. One of Maurice’s subject matters was la commedia dell’arte. You may remember that oneofMolière‘s artists wasEdmond Geffroy(29 July 1804-8 February 1895) FR. Maurice Sand’sMasques et bouffons de la comédie italienne, texte et dessinswas published in 1860. Maurice was also a writer. He was a self-effacing gentleman, but kept company with the most famous writers and artists of his days.
Molière (15 January 1622 – 17 February 1673) was influenced by the comédie italienne and, in particular, by the commedia dell’arte. He once shared a theatre with the Italians. Moreover, Molière’s first troupe, L’Illustre Théâtre, went bankrupt in 1645, the year it was founded. Molière spent 24 hours in jail and then left Paris and toured the provinces until 1658. We do not have the text of the many comedies he performed during the 13 years he lived outside Paris, but he may have posted a canevas, the plot, and members of his troupe improvised their role as did the actors of the commedia dell’arte.
Pantalone is a heavy father or an alazôn, the blocking character of comedy, or the person who opposes the young lovers’ marriage. As for Pantalone, he is a ‘needy’ blocking character or Pantalon de’ Bisognosi, Italian for ‘Pantalone of the Needy.’ His name derives from San Pantaleone, or Saint Pantaleon. (See Pantalone and Saint Pantaleon, Wikipedia.) As an alazôn, Pantalone is the opponent of the victorious eirôn (as in the word ironic), who helps bring about the marriage of the young lovers. The role, or function, of the alazôn may be played by several characters such as a braggart soldier, a miles gloriosus, or a pedant, il dottore. Roman playwright Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE) wrote the Aulularia, featuring the miser Euclio.
Pantalone is an ancestor to Molière’s L’Avare(The Miser).L’Avare‘s other ancestor is Euclio, the miser featured in Aulularia, the pot of gold, a play by Roman dramatist Plautus. Molière’s Miser wasfirst performed on 9 September 1668, in the theatre of the Palais-Royal, lethéâtre du Palais-Royal. Harpagon is a descendant of Plautus’ Euclio (see L’Avare, Wikipedia).
Molière’s L’Avare
My article on Molière’s L’Avare(The Miser) is ready for posting, but it is too long. This post will help me make it shorter. L’Avare originates in Greek Old Comedy and Greek New Comedy (Menander c. 342/41 – c. 290 BCE). He may be a type in the Latin Fabula palliata and Atellan Farce, but Molière’s best known-sources are Plautus‘ Aulularia and the commedia dell’arte. Money, or lack thereof, is a common obstacle to the marriage of comedy’s young lovers. As we will see in a future post, Molière’s L’Avare features two young couples and two father figures.
You may notice that a large number of individuals can be associated with Plautus’ Miles gloriosusand the commedia dell’arte‘s Pantalone, il Dottore and il Capitano. Comedies, farces in particular, often feature a boastful character. But Molière’s L’Avare is the depiction of a miser, a less prominent figure than boastful characters.
Pantalone is dressed as Pantalone and his costume is part of his mask. It is always the same and he looks like a hunchback. However, he is not Victor Hugo‘s Hunchback of Notre-Dame(1831). He is a hunchback because of the bag of money he conceals. Pantalone is lustful, jealous, deceitful, selfish, lazy, full of himself (“Il Magnifico”), but, above all, greedy.
Pantalone is the metaphorical representation of money in the commedia world. (See Pantalone, Wikipedia.)
Pantalone is “di bisognosi” (dans le besoin, the needy).
Other than his hunch, Pantalone wears a red cap, red tights, yellow Turkishslippers, a short vest and a long coat. (continue reading)
George Dandin ou le Mari confondu (George Dandin or the Abashed Husband) is one of Molière‘s enigmatic plays. It was first performed on 18 July 1668,[1]at Versailles, and it was part of a Grand Divertissement Royal, a celebration of the French victory at Aix-la-Chapelle. It consisted of the play itself and a pastoral, a conversation between shepherdesses mainly.
Background
Henri van Laun (the translator)
a comédie-ballet
a pastoral
sources: Guarini’s (Il Pastor Fido) and, perhaps, Boccacio (The Decameron)
the Dolopatos (the tale of a woman locked into a tower)
a mésalliance
George Dandin(1668) is a comédie-ballet and a farce, accompanied by a pastorale. My copy (Pléiade, 1956)does include the pastoral. It is in the endnotes, beginning p. 955). It is mentioned in Molière21 e-text. However, ironically, the pastoral is included in the Internet Archive translation we are using. It is Henri van Laun‘s (1820-1896) six-volume Dramatic Works of Molière with eleven ilustrations by Horace Vernet, Alexandre-Joseph Desenne, Tony Johannot and Louis Hersent. George Dandin appears in volume IV of Van Laun’s collection and it is complete. Henri van Laun has separated the acts into a larger number of scenes.
However, our Molière21 e-text contains the precious Notice and I should think the new Pléiade edition (2010) of Molière’s complete works also includes the pastoral, written by Molière and set to music by Lully. However, the pastoral can be read online in Henri van Laun‘s English translation of Molière, whose translation of George Dandin, I am using.
Pastorals – the Dolopatos
Pastorals find their origin in Guarini‘s (1538-1612) Pastor Fido (1590), The Faithful Shepherd. As for GeorgeDandin, a farce, it may also be rooted in Giovanni Boccacio‘s (1313-1375) Decameron, 4th, 7th, and 8th days. The Decameron contains 100 tales told by young men and women hiding from the plague. These were very influential. Chaucer may have read the Decameron when he was on a mission to Italy in 1372. The structure of his Canterbury Tales resembles that of the Decameron.
Molière has written other pastorals, Mélicerte (December 1666), La Pastorale comique(January 1667), Le Sicilien ou l’Amour peintre (February 1667). He did so just before writing GeorgeDandin. Molière was extremely sick when he wrote most of the above-mentioned pastorals. He had to take time off and was reported to be dying. It was a lung ailment. (See Molière, Wikipedia.) Molière died in February 1673.
George Dandin is also associated with an Indian work, the Dolopatos, written before the Common Era, before Christ, and translated into Arabic and Hebrew (see Salon littéraire). It was also translated into Latin and then French. As well, this farce is rooted in Molière’s own Jalousie du Barbouillé, which may have been written before Molière’s return to Paris.
The Agroikos –Impoverished Nobility
In Greek literature, George Dandin, would be called an agroikos (rustic), a stock character. He is a peasant who has married into the upper classes and wishes to be separated from his wife when he realizes that he has simply bought a title: de la Dandinière. Such incidents were frequent in 17th-century France because aristocrats wanted to be ‘seen’ at court, which costs a fortune. They could not afford dowries for all their daughters. Often only one was endowed.
Angélique’s parents are also impoverished nobility, but they do not live in Paris. Angélique, however, was literally sold to Dandin and, even after the marriage, the Sotenvilles (sot=stupid) continue to see him as a peasant and so does their daughter. The Sotenvilles did have not consult their daughter when arrangements for her marriage were made. It is a mésalliance.
A Mésalliance – Cuckoldry
In Act III, Scene 5, Clitandre points to the incongruous aspect of Angélique’s marriage to Dandin:
(…) et que c’est une étrange chose que l’assemblage qu’on a fait d’une personne comme vous avec un homme comme lui !
[(…) and that the union of a woman like you to a man like him is somewhat strange.(III, 5)]
I sense here a wish on the part of Clitandre to give order to the disorderly. The marriage has not been consummated (Act III, Scene V ), but there is a contract.
Typically, in Molière, a mésalliance (marrying into a different class) and a forced marriage (un mariage forcé) both lead to cuckoldry, the fate so feared by Arnolphe (L’École des femmes, 1662). Dandin was foolish and the Sotenvilles, sots, as their name suggest. When her parents will not allow her to be separated from Dandin, Claudine, Angélique’s maid, says:
“It is a pity to see a poor young wife treated in such a fashion; it cries to Heaven for vengeance.” (Claudine, III, 12) However, Dandin is treated neither as a husband nor as a nobleman.
Georges Dandin (George Dandin), husband of Angelica
Angelica (Angélique), Georges Dandin’s wife
Sir Sotenville (Monsieur de Sotenville), Angelica’s father
Mrs Sotenville (Madame de Sotenville), Sir Sotenville’s wife
Clitander (Clitandre), in love with Angelica
Claudine, Angelica’s servant
Lubin, Clitandre’s servant
Colin, Dandin’s servant
Act One
The play is a three-act farce and the overall dramatic action, the deceiver deceived, or trompeur trompé, is reflected in each act. The action is triggered in the same manner as in L’École des femmes. Dandin is told that he has a rival, Clitandre, by the rival’s valet, Lubin. Like Arnolphe, Dandin believes this intelligence will help him. He wishes to prove to his in-laws that he has a wicked wife from whom he should be separated, which her parents would never allow. However, Clitandre or Angélique always talk their way out of every ploy used by the ill-fated Dandin.
In Act One, Clitandre, who happens to be with Angélique, suggests that Angélique betrayed him.
Est-ce donc vous, Madame, qui avez dit à votre mari que je suis amoureux de vous ? (Clitandre, I, 6)
[Is it you then, Madam, who have told your husband that I am in love with you? (Clitandre, I, 6)]
She defends herself by making believe she is accusing him, but if reversed her words are an invitation to Clitandre to continue the galanterie. It’s a brilliant double entendre. Dandin is then asked to apologize to Clitandre who is a genuine gentilhomme. (I, 8)
Act Two
In Act Two, once again Lubin tells George everything. Angélique’s parents are brought to see their daughter breaking the terms of the contract, her marriage contract. Act Two, Scene 3 resembles L’École des femmes (III, 2). Dandin tries to impress upon his wife that, given the marriage contract, she has duties, but she is very quick to state that George married her parents. She was not consulted. Angélique denies that she has obligations towards George. When Clitandre dispatches uneambassade, a letter, she invokes the importance of pleasure, as does Agnès in L’École des femmes. She will not chase galants away.
Moi, les [men courting her] chasser ! et par quelle raison ? Je ne me scandalise point qu’on me trouve bien faite, et cela me fait du plaisir. (Scene 2) [I drive them away! and for what reason? I am not scandalised at being thought handsome, and it affords me pleasure.] (Scene 4)
Angélique is caught speaking with Clitandre, but she feigns anger at Clitandre. (Scene 10) Once again, Dandin is punished. It seems Clitandre is being hit with a stick, but George Dandin is the victim.
Act Three
In Act Three, Angélique thinks George is sleeping. She is outside with Clitandre. It’s night time and very dark. Believing he is speaking with Claudine, Lubin tells George Dandin everything. But matters are as in the School for Wives, he is speaking to the young couple’s barbon, Dandin. He asks Colin, his valet, to seek his in-laws.
In Scene 5, Clitandre is worried. Husbands have privileges. Angélique tells him that she does not make love with Dandin.
Serez-vous assez fou pour avoir cette inquiétude, et pensez-vous qu’on soit capable d’aimer de certains maris qu’il y a ? (Scène V) [Are you weak enough to have such anxiety, and do you think it is possible to love a certain sort of husbands? (Scene V)]
In Scene VI, Angélique and Claudine, her maid, cannot re-enter the house. George Dandin has bolted the door. She tells him she has wronged him and, in desperation, she makes believe she has killed herself. When he opens the door to see if she is dead, she and Claudine lock him out. The Sotenvilles arrive and Angélique accuses George Dandin of having spent the evening drinking.
Angélique wants to end the marriage and so does Dandin, but Angélique’s father will not let her leave her husband. Monsieur de Sotenville gives himself the puissance absolue, the absolute power (Scène 7), of a pater familias. Angélique is asked by her father to apologize to Dandin, a husband from whom she wants to be separated.
Moi ? lui pardonner tout ce qu’il m’a dit ? Non, non, mon père, il m’est impossible de m’y résoudre, et je vous prie de me séparer d’un mari avec lequel je ne saurais plus vivre. (Scène 7)
[I! pardon him after all that he has said to me? No, no, father I cannot possibly make up my mind to it; and I beg of you to separate me from a husband with whom I can no longer live. (Scene 14)]
As for Dandin, the Sotenvilles force him to kneel down and apologize to Angélique. Therefore, George says to himself that all he can do is go and drown himself, which is indeed all the he can do:
Ah ! je le quitte maintenant, et je n’y vois plus de remède, lorsqu’on a comme moi épousé une méchante femme, le meilleur parti qu’on puisse prendre, c’est de s’aller jeter dans l’eau la tête la première. (Scène 8)
[Ah! I give it up altogether, and I can see no help for it. When one has married, as I have done, a wicked wife, the best step on can take is to go and throw one’s self into the water, head foremost. (Scene 15)]
As noted above, in Molière, mésalliance and forced marriages lead to cuckoldry. All Dandin has gained by marrying Angélique is a title: de la Dandinière, a hollow and ridiculous title. “Se dandiner” means to waddle.
A Problematical comedy
the contract
the parasites
Monsieur de Sotenville: a pater familias – fear
Marriage being a contract and a sacrament, Molière’s George Dandin is a problematical farce. In L’École des femmes, Arnolphe and Agnès were not married. But the Sotenvilles are George Dandin’s in-laws and parasites.[2] They married Angélique to him because of the money he could provide.
Initially, George Dandin was also a parasite. He wanted a title. But the curtain rises on a desperate husband who wishes to see the marriage terminated. We know that the marriage has not been consummated. (Scene V)
Monsieur de Sotenville is the archetypal pater familias. Claudine obeys because she is afraid of him. Fear is very much a factor in Molière. The Sotenvilles may still need Dandin’s money, but more importantly, a separation could be a scandal.
Ma fille, de semblables séparations ne se font point sans grand scandale, et vous devez vous montrer plus sage que lui, et patienter encore cette fois. (Scène 7)
[Such separations, daughter, are not brought about without a great deal of scandal; and you should show yourself wiser than he, and be patient once more. (Scene 14)]
Honour is invoked, but far more severe an element is the authority Monsieur de Sotenville has given himself. He possesses his daughter.
You must, daughter; I command you. (Monsieur de Sotenville, Scene 14)
This word stops my mouth. You have absolute authority over me. (Angélique, Scene 14)
“Poor lamb,” says Claudine, Angélique’s maid.
As Angélique bemoans, it will happen again and again. The structure of farces allows constant reversals. They are like the Saturnalia of ancient Rome.
Tout ce que vous me faites faire ne servira de rien, et vous verrez que ce sera dès demain à recommencer. (Angélique, Scène 7)
[Whatever you make me do will be of no use; we shall have to recommence to-morrow, you will see. (Scene 14)]
In the world of comedy, there are no rules of marriage. The genre promotes the marriage of the young lovers. In this play, however, the dramatic structure, i.e. the reversals, dominate. However, while militating in favour of the real young lovers, the farce is unkind to Angélique and Clitandre. They cannot marry because Angélique’s parents will not allow their daughter to come home.
Conclusion
George Dandin is filled with comical scenes, such as the double entendre. The manner in which the Sotenvilles deal with George is also comical. (I, 4) So is the way in which Monsieur de Sotenville introduces himself to Clitandre. He mentions his lineage. (I, 5) In fact, the Sotenvilles are ridiculous. In George Dandin, lineage is mocked as it has never been. Madame de Sotenville’s maiden name is de la Prudoterie.
It could be said therefore that Molière rescues the comedic by pushing the farce to an extreme. Everything is a joke. When the curtain falls, the play will not have taken place. It will have been a joke.
The most famous line of the play is:
“J’enrage de bon cœur d’avoir tort, lorsque j’ai raison.” (Dandin, I, 4)
[It makes me mad to be put in the wrong when I am in the right. (I, 7)]
In fact, Dandin is both in the wrong and in the right. According to Will G. Moore, “Dandin is essentially in the right, but he is in all actual cases made to appear in the wrong.”[3]
_________________________ [1]There is disagreement concerning the date. [2] Michel Serres, Le Parasite (Paris : Hachette littératures, coll. Pluriel, 1997 [1980]), p. 361-373. [3] See W. G. Moore, Molière: a New Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968 [1949]), p. 118.
When L’École des femmeswas first performed, on 26 December 1662, it created a controversy, which Molière addressed by writing a one-act play in prose entitled La Critique de l’École des femmes(1663). The short play features characters discussing L’École des femmes. It has often been considered Molière’s ars poetica.
According to Dorante, the most prominent figure in the Critique, if the spectator laughed, the play was a success. The School for Wives had generated laughter so, using Dorante’s criterion, it was successful. Dorante also states that writing comedies is particularly difficult because one has to depict persons “d’après nature,” or as they are:
Mais lorsque vous peignez les hommes, il faut peindre d’après nature[.] (I, 6.)
[But when one depicts human beings, one must depict their true nature.] La Critique de l’École des femmes, FR
“D’après nature”
In Le Tartuffe, Molière depicted his faux dévot “d’après nature.” However, the play was banned because Tartuffe, who feigned devotion, acted very much like a devout person, which offended the dévots of Paris: la Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement.
As for L’École desfemmes, it was criticized because of details mainly. For instance, one person found the manner in which Arnolphe questions Agnès rather crude. Arnolphe wants to know if Horace took anything from her other than her hands and arms, which he caressed. She hesitates to tell that he took the ribbon Arnolphe had given her. She says “le” and this “le” was obscene according to Climène, a précieuse.
Ah ! ruban, tant qu’il vous plaira ; mais ce, le, où elle s’arrête, n’est pas mis pour des prunes. Il vient sur ce, le, d’étranges pensées. Ce, le, scandalise furieusement ; et quoi que vous puissiez dire, vous ne sauriez défendre l’insolence de ce, le. La Critique, Climène, scene 3.
The “le” (the) was not only offensive, but it wasn’t there for nothing: “pour des prunes[.]” This “le” led to strange thoughts: d’étranges pensées and was therefore “furiously scandalous.”
Il y a une obscénité qui n’est pas supportable. [It is unbearably obscene.] La Critique, Climène, scene 3.
Soliloquies or récits and destiny
Obscenity was not the play’s most important ‘flaw.’ However, it was extremely amusing, and Molière wrote comedies. The more relevant flaw, according to our characters, was that Molière had made Arnolphe express himself using numerous soliloquies as well as asides (apartés). These were not part of the dramatic action,[1] said some members of the group.
Dorante countered that:
Les récits eux-mêmes y sont des actions suivant la constitution du sujet. (I, 6.)
[Soliloquies themselves are actions, depending on the subject matter.]
These were indeed part of the action because Arnolphe could not tell anyone, not even Chrysalde, the play’s raisonneur, about the “star […] bent on driving [him] to despair” (The School for Wives, p. 21). Arnolphe was a star-crossed barbon.
In L’École des femmes, the dramatic action is triggered by a doubling of the identity of the blocking character. Horace, our young lover, does not know that Arnolphe, his father’s friend, is Monsieur de la Souche and that in confiding to Arnolphe, he is in fact confiding to his rival. When Arnolphe learns that young Horace has fallen in love with Agnès who is kept sequestered by a very jealous Monsieur de la Souche, he must conceal his grief and bewilderment. He speaks to himself and, if he didn’t, there would be gaps in the dramatic action. There has to be a dialogue, which there is.
Oh ! que j’ai souffert durant cet entretien ! Jamais trouble d’esprit ne fut égal au mien. Avec quelle imprudence et quelle hâte extrême Il m’est venu conter cette affaire à moi-même ! (Arnolphe, I, 4, v. 355-358.)
[Oh, what I have endured during this conversation! Never was trouble of mind equal to mine! With what rashness and extreme haste did he come to tell me of this affair!] The School for Wives, p. 9.
Destiny
Destiny plays the key role in L’École des femmes and Arnolphe blames destiny throughout the play:
Éloignement fatal ! Voyage malheureux ! (Arnolphe II, 1, v. 384.)
[Fatal absence! Unfortunate voyage!] The School for Wives, p. 9.
In Act V, scene 7, Arnolphe speaks about the above-mentioned “star which is bent on driving [him] to despair,” and remains defiant.
Quoi ? l’astre qui s’obstine à me désespérer, Ne me donnera pas le temps de respirer, Coup sur coup je verrai par leur intelligence, De mes soins vigilants confondre la prudence, D’une jeune innocente, et d’un jeune éventé ? (Arnolphe, V, 7, v. 1180-1185.)
[What, will the star which is bent on driving me to despair allow me no time to breathe? Am I to see, through their mutual understanding, my watchful care and my wisdom defeated one after another? Must I, in my mature age, become the dupe of a simple girl and a scatter−brained young fellow?] The School for Wives, p. 21.
Destiny is so cruel to Arnolphe that it brings in a “real” father. When Enrique, Agnès’ biological father, arrives, Agnès ceases to be Arnolphe’s ward, which she has been for 13 years. Arnolphe is so perturbed that, having expressed himself quite fluently in several soliloquies and asides, he suddenly loses his ability to speak. In an aparté, Chrysalde tells Arnolphe, who is returning to his house, that, given his fear of cuckolding, it is best for him not to marry. Arnolphe is indeed spared cuckolding, but he has been crushed by destiny.
Life as a game of dice: “un jeu de dés”
Destiny is so powerful that in Act IV, Scene 8, Chrysalde, the raisonneur himself, suggests that all Arnolphe can do, if betrayed by “cursed fate,” is to select an appropriate response to this “accident.” Destiny is an indomitable force that can strike anyone at any time. In fact, Chrysalde tells Arnolphe that cocuage is what one makes of it: “Le cocuage n’est que ce que l’on le fait.” (Chrysalde, IV, 8, v. 1301.). Destiny (le sort) gives men a wife and life is a jeu de dés, a game of dice. One corrects such accidents as cocuage though “good management,” une bonne conduite:
Quoi qu’on en puisse dire, enfin, le cocuage Sous des traits moins affreux aisément s’envisage; Et, comme je vous le dis, toute l’habileté Ne va qu’à le savoir tourner du bon côté. (Chrysalde, IV, 8, v. 1272-1275.) L’École des femmes [In short, say what you will, cuckolding may easily be made to seem less terrible; and, as I told you before, all your dexterity lies in being able to turn the best side outwards.] The School for wives, p. 22.
Mais comme c’est le sort qui nous donne une femme, Je dis que l’on doit faire ainsi qu’au jeu de dés, Il faut jouer d’adresse et d’une âme réduite, Corriger le hasard par la bonne conduite. (Chrysalde, IV, 8. v. 1282-1285.) L’École des femmes [But as fortune gives us a wife, I say that we should act as we do when we gamble with dice, when, if you do not get what you want, you must be shrewd and good−tempered, to amend your luck by good management.] The School for wives, p. 22.
If one takes into account destiny’s power, Arnolphe’s obsessive fear of cuckolding is in his nature. This immutability of nature is a premise in Molière. Arnolphe is as he is and Agnès is as she is. For instance, she can tell Horace that she is kept by a very jealous man. Agnès may be an ignorant girl, but she knows about jealousy. She also knows about the game of dice.
Agnès and Horace
In L’École des femmes, the laws of comedy are pushed to an extreme. After Agnès escapes Monsieur de la Souche, which could be the resolution of the play, Horace asks Arnolphe to house and guard Agnès so her reputation is protected.
Moreover, it is barely credible that Agnès’ biological father should arrive the moment his daughter is being led away by Arnolphe. It is also barely credible that Agnès should have fallen in love with the young man her father wanted her to marry. Molière doubles the father figure: Monsieur de la Souche and Enrique, who has decided his daughter would marry Horace. Were it not for Chrysalde’s intervention, and the power of destiny, Horace’s marriage may have been a mariage forcé.
(…) Si son cœur a quelque répugnance.
Je tiens qu’on ne doit pas lui faire résistance. (Chrysalde, V, 7, v. 1684-1686.)
[If it is repugnant to him, I think we ought not to force him. I think my brother will be of my mind.] The School for Wives, p. 28.
Le hasard [chance] en ces lieux avait exécuté Ce que votre sagesse avait prémédité. (Horace, V, 9, v. 1764-1765.) [Accident has done here what your wisdom intended.] The School for Wives, p. 29.
Such words as “hasard” (chance) and “le Ciel,” (heaven) reveal a view of the world according to which destiny controls mankind. L’École des femmes may therefore reflect Jansenism, but the word Jansenism is not used.
Allons dans la maison débrouiller ces mystères, Payer à notre ami ses soins officieux, Et rendre grâce au Ciel qui fait tout pour le mieux. (Chrysalde, V, 9,v. 1775 -1765.)
[Let us go inside, and clear up these mysteries. Let us shew our friend some return for his great pains, and thank Heaven, which orders all for the best.] The School for Wives, p. 29.
In 1662, the Church of France opposed Jesuits, who at the time used casuistry,[2] and Jansenists, who believed in predestination. Port-Royal (Jansenism) is an indelible page of French history and it inspired Blaise Pascal‘s masterful Lettres provinciales, a brillant attack of casuistry. Pascal’s last Lettre provinciale was written in 1657.
In The Tartuffe, there is a reference to casuistry. Tartuffe knows how to “pacify scruples:”
Je sais l’art de lever [to lift] des scrupules. (Tartuffe, IV, 4, v. 1486.)
[I know the art of pacifying scruples.] Tartuffe, IV, 4.
However, Molière does not associate L’École des femmes with an ideology. We know that Molière borrowed his subject matter from Paul Scarron‘s translation of a Spanish novella by Doña Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor, which Scarron entitled La Précaution inutile. We also know that L’École des femmes has Italian antecedents. It could be, therefore, that ancestors to L’École des femmes gave destiny an important role. Yet, it seems unlikely that they gave destiny as decisive a role as Molière did.
Jansenists maintained that only those whom God had chosen would be saved. This notion was referred to as the theory of predestination, a theory associated with Saint Augustine, or Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 CE – 28 August 430 CE).
Molière did not have to refer to an ideology when writing L’École des femmes. He did not need to. Comedy promotes the success of the young lovers. Yet seldom has destiny countered a barbon‘s wishes as imperatively. Dismissing predestination is somewhat difficult because of the central role given soliloquies. Arnolphe must hide from Horace that he is Monsieur de la Souche, until Chrysalde says:
(…) Ce nom l’aigrit ;
C’est Monsieur de la Souche, on vous l’a déjà dit. (Chrysalde, V, 7, v. 1712-1703.)
[That name annoys him. He is Monsieur de la Souche, as you were told before.] The School for Wives, p. 28.
As noted above, in L’École des femmes, life is compared to a jeu de dés [dice]. Gambling is also invoked by Agnès herself.
Mon Dieu, ne gagez pas, vous perdriez vraiment. (Agnès, II, 5, v. 474.) [3]
[Oh, Heaven, do not bet; you would assuredly lose.] The School for wives, p.10.
However, I will not conclude that L’École des femmes reflects Jansenism, except marginally. The laws of comedy promote the marriage of the young lovers and farces do not tolerate boasting. Moreover, jealousy is a topos, a lieu commun.
But I will note that Molière’s L’École des femmes seems a prelude to Marivaux‘ exquisite comedies. It is a “jeu de l’amour et du hasard,” a “Game of love and chance,” without Watteau‘s ethereal Fêtes galantes.
I apologize for the long delay. I could not concentrate. Love to everyone ♥
_________________________ [1] Gabriel Conesa, Le Dialogue moliéresque (Paris: SEDES-CDU, 1992), p. 30.
[2]Roxanne Lalande, “L’École des femmes : matrimony and the laws of chance,” in David Bradby and Andrew Calder (editors), The Cambridge Companion to Molière (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 165-176.
[3] “casuistry”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia
Arnolphe, or Monsieur de la Souche Agnès,une ingénue, raised by Arnolphe Horace, the jeune premier whose father is Oronte Oronte, Horace’s father and a friend of Arnolphe Chrysalde, the raisonneur and Arnolphe’s friend Enrique, Chrysalde’s brother-in-law
The dramatis personæ also includes a notary, a maid (Georgette), and a valet (Alain).
Arnolphe & Monsieur de la Souche
a fortuitous victory
two names
In L’École des femmes (1662), the victory of the young couple, Horace and Agnès, is mostly fortuitous and irony is the main literary device used by Molière. Ironically, Horace tells Arnolphe, the blocking character, or senex iratus, everything he and Agnès have done and everything they plan to do.
Molière has made this possible by creating a barbon who has just changed his name. Young Horace, our jeune premier, thinks his rival is Monsieur de la Souche, not Arnolphe. Our pedant, Arnolphe, is a friend of his father as well as Chrysalde’s friend. Horace does not hesitate to ask him for money no more than Arnolphe hesitates to loan him the amount he needs. He also gives him the wallet. Arnolphe knows he will be repaid. Ironically, Horace has no reason to think that Arnolphe is not supportive of him in every way. On the contrary.
In fact, after he and Agnès have fled the house in which she was kept by Monsieur de la Souche, a jealous man, Horace asks Arnolphe, his rival, to look after Agnès while he makes preparations for what we suspect is a wedding. Horace wishes to protect Agnès’ reputation and he must speak to his father’s regarding his marriage. He therefore asks Arnolphe to be Agnès’ temporary guardian. Irony suffuses the comedy and, at this point, reaches its climax.
C’est à vous seul [Arnolphe] aussi, comme ami généreux, Que je puis confier ce dépôt amoureux. (Horace, V, 2, v. 1430-5.)
[(…) and as I have trusted the whole secret of my passion to you, being assured of your prudence, so to you only, as a generous friend, can I confide this beloved treasure.] The School for Wives, p. 24.
Octave Uzanne, Le Livre, Paris, A. Quantin, 1880 [1719 edition]. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Irony also stems from Agnès’ ignorance. Arnolphe has Agnès raised in a convent, asking that she learn as little as possible about the ways of the world. That, he believes, is his very best precaution. He doesn’t want to cuckolded.
As you know, before leaving for about ten days, Arnolphe directs Georgette, Agnès’ maid, and Alain, her manservant, not to let anyone into Agnès’ house. He also directs Agnès not to see anyone. However, Arnolphe has learned from Horace that he has seen a lovely woman and that he is in love, which is why he needs the money he has just borrowed. Arnolphe is afraid and decides to speak with Agnès. He tells her that he has he has been told than an unknown young man came to her house. These people, he says, are méchantes langues, slandering tongues. He claims he is ready to bet they are not telling the truth.
Mon Dieu, ne gagez pas : vous perdriez vraiment. (Agnès, II, 5. v. 473.)
[Oh, Heaven, do not bet; you would assuredly lose.] The School for Wives, p. 10.
Quoi! c’est la vérité qu’un homme… (Arnolphe II, 5, v. 474.)
[What! It is true that a man… ]
(…) Chose sûre.
Il n’a presque bougé de chez nous, je vous jure. (Agnès II, 5, v. 475-6.)
[Quite true. I declare to you that he was scarcely ever out of the house.] The School for Wives, p. 10 & p. 11.
She has given him a ribbon, and he has kissed her arms, Arnolphe wants to know more.
Passe pour le ruban. Mais je voudrais apprendre,
S’il ne vous a rien fait que vous baiser les bras. (Arnolphe, II, 5, v. 580-1.)
[Oh! let the ribbon go. But I want to know if he did nothing to you but kiss your arms.] The School for Wives, p. 12.
Comment. Est-ce qu’on fait d’autres choses ? (Agnès, II, 5, v. 582.)
[Why! do people do other things?] The School for Wives, p. 12.
(…) Non pas. Mais pour guérir du mal qu’il dit qui le possède, N’a-t-il point exigé de vous d’autre remède ? (Arnolphe, II, 5, v. 583-4.)
[Not at all. But, to cure the disorder which he said had seized him, did he not ask you for any other remedy?] The School for Wives, p. 12.
Non. Vous pouvez juger, s’il en eût demandé, Que pour le secourir j’aurais tout accordé. (Agnès, II, 5, v. 585-6.)
[No. You may judge that I would have granted him anything to do him good, if he had asked for it.] The School for Wives, p. 12.
Chrysalde was right. Virtue is not enough:
(…) L’honnêteté suffit. (Arnolphe, I, 1, v. 106.) Mais comment voulez-vous, après tout, qu’une bête Puisse jamais savoir ce que c’est qu’être honnête. (Chrysalde, I. 1, v. 107-8.)
(…) Virtue is quite enough.
But how can you expect, after, all, that a mere simpleton can ever know what it is to be virtuous?] The School for Wives, p. 4.
The School for Wives combines several comic texts: the farce, the comedy of manners, and the comedy of intrigue. It is also rooted in the commedia dell’arte. Arnolphe resembles Il Dottore, an inflatedcharacter who ends up deflated.
Arnolphe has the audacity to think he can fool destiny and destiny undoes him. In LÉcole des femmes, destiny reigns supreme and Arnophe will be the trompeur trompé of farces:
(…) Oui ; mais qui rit d’autrui Doit craindre qu’en revanche on rie aussi de lui. (Chrysalde, I, 1, v. 45-6.)
[Yes; but he who laughs at another must beware, lest he in turn be laughed at himself.] The School for Wives, p. 3.
He, Chrysalde, believes he cannot control destiny. He therefore refrains from mocking others so others do not mock him. According to the laws of comedy, lashing out leads to a backlash. The deceiver is deceived.
In Act I, scene 4, Arnolphe tells Horace that watching cocus is like watching a comedy. But he is now on the same stage, as the cocus he ridiculed, thinking he could shape destiny and boasting about it.
C’est un plaisir de prince, et des tours que je voi Je me donne souvent la comédie à moi. (Arnolphe, I, 4, v. 295-6.)
[It is a pleasure fit for a King; to me it is a mere comedy to
see the pranks I do.] The School for Wives, p. 7.
In this scene, we see to what extent Arnolphe himself has caused his demise. Agnès is so innocent she “would have granted him [Horace] anything to do him good, if he had asked.” Would that she had known more! Chrysalde was right. Virtue is not enough.
(…) L’honnêteté suffit. (Arnolphe, I, 1, v. 104.) [Mais comment voulez-vous, après tout, qu’une bête Puisse jamais savoir ce que c’est qu’être honnête.] (Chrysalde, I. 1. v. 105-6.)
(…) Virtue is quite enough.
[But how can you expect, after, all, that a mere simpleton can ever know what it is.] The School for Wives, p. 4.
Arnolphe is fully undone. However, he is included in the final society, imperfect as it may be.
Allons dans la maison débrouiller ces mystères, Payer à notre ami ces soins officieux, Et rendre grâce au Ciel qui fait tout pour le mieux. (Chrysalde, V, scène dernière, v. 1775-7.)
[Let us go inside, and clear up these mysteries. Let us shew our friend some return for his great pains, and thank Heaven, which orders all for the best.] The School for Wives, p. 29.
Molière as Arnolphe (detail)
Les Farceurs français et italiens depuis soixante ans et plus, 1670
Anagnorisis
When Horace first meets Arnolphe, in Act I, he is carrying two letters addressed to Arnolphe. These indicate that Oronte, Horace’s father, will be visiting with a person Horace does not know.
We know, therefore, that there may be unexpected changes, a discovery: anagnorisis.
It so happens that the guest who will accompany Oronte, Horace’s father is Enrique, Chrysalde’s brother-in-law. It was a private marriage and a daughter was born to Henrique and Angélique. Enrique had to leave France unexpectedly, so the child was left in the custody of a woman who grew too poor to look after Agnès. This woman had to entrust her charge to a person who could afford to raise Agnès. Agnès was 4 years old. These are the circumstances under which Arnolphe became Agnès’ ward. She is now 17.
In Act V, when Enrique arrives, Agnès ceases to be Arnolphe’s ward. Suddenly, after 13 years, Arnolphe no longer has any authority over Agnès. In fact, Agnès can talk. She is not “bête.” Arnolphe therefore leaves devastated and unable to speak: “tout transporté et ne pouvant parler.”
Scholar Bernard Magné has noted that in the final discovery scene (reconnaissance) scene, Arnolphe loses the ability to speak:
(…) Dans la scène de reconnaissance finale, Arnolphe perd réellement l’usage de la parole.[1]
Earlier, when he was pulling a reluctant Agnès away, Arnolphe called her causeuse (a talker):
Allons, causeuse, allons. (Arnolphe, V, 9, v. 1726.)
[Come along, chatterbox.] L’École des femmes, p. 29.
Agnès has indeed gained the ability to speak :
Oui : mais pour femme, moi, je prétendais vous prendre, Et je vous l’avais fait, me semble, assez entendre. (Arnolphe, V, 4, v. 1510-1511.)
[Yes; but I meant to take you to wife myself; I think I gave you to understand it clearly enough.] The School for Wives, p. 26.
Oui : mais à vous parler franchement entre nous, Il est plus pour cela selon mon goût que vous. (Agnès, V, 4. v. 1512 – 1513.) [You did. But, to be frank with you, he is more to my taste for a husband than you. With you, marriage is a trouble and a pain, and your descriptions give a terrible picture of it; but there—he makes it seem so full of joy that I long to marry.] The School for Wives, p. 26.
Vraiment, il en sait donc là-dessus plus que vous ; Car à se faire aimer il n’a point eu de peine. (Agnès, V, 4, v. 1539-1540.) [Of a truth then he knows more about it than you; for he had no difficulty in making himself loved.] The School for Wives, p. 26.
Le moyen de chasser ce qui fait du plaisir (Agnès, V, 4, v. 1527.)
[How can we drive away what gives us pleasure?] The School for Wives, p. 26.
According to the laws of comedy, lashing out at someone leads to a backlash: trompeur trompé, deceiver deceived.
Honour is fragile
In Act I, Arnolphe expresses a view of marriage according to which a wife is dependent on her husband. He is glad that Agnès will owe him everything.
Je me vois riche assez, pour pouvoir, que je croi, Choisir une moitié, qui tienne tout de moi, Et de qui la soumise, et pleine dépendance, N’ait à me reprocher aucun bien, ni naissance. (Arnolphe, I, 1, v. 123-6.)
[I think I am rich enough to take a partner who shall owe all to me, and whose humble station and complete dependence cannot reproach me either with her poverty or her birth.] The School for Wives, p. 4.
However, after realizing that he nearly lost Agnès, Arnolphe tells Agnès that he has difficulty making himself loved and that his honour is fragile. Horace knows how to make himself love:
Que ne vous êtes-vous comme lui fait aimer ? (Agnès, V. 4, v. 1535.)
[Why did you not make yourself loved, as he has done?] The School for Wives, p. 26.
Car à se faire aimer il n’a point eu de peine. Agnès. (Agnès, V, 4, v. 1540.) [For he had no difficulty in making himself loved.] The School for Wives, p. 26.
In Act III, Arnolphe says:
Songez qu’en vous faisant moitié de ma personne ;
C’est mon honneur, Agnès, que je vous abandonne :
Que cet honneur est tendre, et se blesse de peu ;
Et qu’il est aux enfers des chaudières bouillantes,
On l’on plonge à jamais les femmes mal vivantes.
Ce que je vous dis là ne sont pas des chansons :
Et vous devez du cœur ces leçons. (Arnolphe III, 1, v. 721-728.)
[Remember, Agnès, that, in making you part of myself, I give my honour into your hands, which honour is fragile, and easily damaged; that it will not do to trifle in such a matter, and that there are boiling cauldrons in hell, into which wives who live wickedly are thrown for evermore.] The School for Wives, p. 14.
In short, Arnolphe is like Orgon who needs Tartuffe to be a tyrant. He also resembles Alceste who preaches truthfulness so he can believe those who praise him. If Arnolphe’s honour depends on marital fidelity, it is best he remain unmarried in a world that is at the complete mercy of destiny.
The problem with this play is the overwhelming power of destiny. The reconnaissance scene he is recourse no one should have to use. But Arnolphe’s précaution was useless. In fact, knowing everything Agnès and Horace were doing, Arnolphe loses Agnès. However, he does not lose her because he asks Arnolphe to look after her, he loses her because a real father arrives after a very long absence. Enrique suddenly replaces Arnolphe and does so fortuitously. Arnolphe loses his ability to speak, which, in the eyes of most people, is a privilege given human beings only.
Molière borrowed his École des femmesfrom Paul Scarron (c. 1 July 1610 in Paris – 6 October 1660 in Paris), the author of the Roman comique (1651-1657) who also translated Spanish stories, one of which was La Précaution inutile.
Antoine Le Métel d’Ouville also wrote a Précaution inutile. (See Molière 21.) Moreover, the full title of Beaumarchais’ Barbier de Séville is Le Barbier de Séville ou la Précaution inutile. The useless precaution is an archetypal mythos (story). It has affinities with Spanish and Italian comedies and the sketches of the commedia dell’arte. It seems Molière had read L’Astuta simplicitá di Angiolo.[2]
Conclusion
To conclude, I will quote Britannica:
The delicate portrayal in Agnès of an awakening temperament, all the stronger for its absence of convention, is a marvel of comedy, as are Arnolphe’s clumsy attempts at lover’s talk. Meanwhile, a young man, Horace, falls in love with Agnès at first sight.[3]
In Molière’s comedies, the one fault that dooms a marriage or a possible marriage is jealousy. In this regard, Molière’s École des femmes is our most celebrated example.It was first performed on 26 December 1662 at the Palais-Royal. Molière’s troupe was at the time la Troupe de Monsieur, frère unique du Roi, the company of the Duke of Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV. It is une grande comédie and it created a controversy. Molière response was in the form of a short play entitled: La Critique de l’École des femmes.
In Molière’s theatre, jealousy affects most barbons, because its stems from the same flaw in character that blinds Orgon and allows Tartuffe to dispossess Orgon’s family. French scholarPaul Bénichou has labelled this flaw a vanité inquiète, vanity combined with insecurity.[1]Were it not for Tartuffe, it would be difficult for Orgon to force his daughter Mariane to marry Tartuffe. Yet, Orgon would not take Tartuffe into his home if he did not wish to be a tyrant with impunity.
In the case of Arnolphe, fear of being cuckoldedis an obsession and, as Chrysalde—the plays raisonneur—tells him, he should not laugh atthose whose wives are not faithful because humans are at the mercy of destiny. Molière lived in the century that opposed casuistes and Jansenists. In the eyes of Jansenists, humans could not ensure their salvation.
Another French scholar, René Bray[2] entitled one of the chapters of his Molière, homme de théâtre (1954) Molière pense-t-il ? Molière theatre is rooted, first and foremost, in comedy, including farces and his own comedies. In earlier days, biography was used to “explain” Molière’s plays.
We cannot dismiss Zeitgeist, but it is important to study Molière using other criteria such as the dramatic structure of his plays, its “types,” and other organizing principles. According to Northrop Frye, one should study a work of literature using a “conceptual framework.”[3] Moreover, there was a time when Molière’s plays were not read as plays but as texts. Molière thinks, but he does so within a genre, comedy, that constitutes, in and of itself, a “conceptual framework.”
The commedia dell’arte troupe of the Gelosi in a late 16th-century Flemish painting (Musée Carnavalet, Paris). The woman is usually identified as Isabella, after Isabella Andreini (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Arnolphe, or Monsieur de la Souche
Agnès,une ingénue, raised by Arnolphe
Horace, the jeune premier whose father is Oronte
Oronte, Horace’s father and a friend of Arnophe
Chrysalde, the raisonneur and Arnolphe’s friend
Enrique, Chrysalde’s brother-in-law
The dramatis personæ also includes a notary, a maid (Georgette), and a valet (Alain).
The Plot
At one level, the plot is that of farces: the trompeurtrompé. But, combined with the trompeur trompé, the plot of L’École des femmes is also the archetypal struggle between the eirôn(the young lovers) and the alazṓn(the blocking character or personnage-obstacle). Le blondin berne le barbon.
In this post, I am telling the plot of the School for Wives, l’École des femmes and write an analysis in a second post. The plot itself is significant. Genre is the starting-point.
Act I
Arnolphe adopted Agnès when she was four years old. He wants to marry her, but fearing he might be cuckolded, he had his ward raised in a convent where she was taught as little as possible about the ways of the world. He thinks that a wife who is sotte and bête, stupid or a beast, will be faithful. He is 42 years old and Agnès, 17.
As the curtain rises, Chrysalde is warning Arnolphe not to boast. Despite his precautions, he may be cocu and people would laugh at him outloud. A cocu is a man whose wife is unfaithful. It is best, expains Chrysalde not to make fun of others. If one does not laugh at others, their laughter will be hushed if destiny strikes a blow, which it often does (I, 1).
Arnophe returns from a trip (I, i). He tries to enter his house, but Georgette and Alain do not seem to know that they should open the door (I, 2).
Arnolphe talks to Agnès who has been sewing (I, 3). Arnolphe also meets Horace, the jeune premier, who tells Arnophe that his father will soon have a visitor, Enrique, and he asks for money which Arnolphe provides (I, 3).
Horace tells Arnolphe that he has met a lovely woman who is being kept in a house by some sort of senex iratus who is very jealous, Arnolphe is 42 (I, 4).
Horace does not know that Arnophe has changed his name to Monsieur de la Souche.
Act II
Arnolphe expresses his feelings. He is in pain (II, 1). He talks with his valet and maid who let a man enter the house (II, 2). Alain explains that Arnolphe is jealous and that Georgette would also be jealous if someone took the soup she is eating (II, 3).
Arnolphe is thinking (II, 4).
Our senex iratus confronts Agnès, thinking she can deny what Horace has said. She cannot. On the contrary, she has been polite, obedient and truthful, as she was taught. Horace waved at her and she waved back, not to be impolite. He waved again, and she waved back again. Agnès had been told not to see anyone, but she had also been taught civility. She did as she was taught.
Arnolphe is alarmed. He was to know if Horace touched Agnès. Again she tells the truth. He did. He caressed her hands and arms. Arnolphe wanders if he has caressed anything else. She hesitates, but says that she gave Horace the ribbon Arnolphe had given her (II, 3).
Arnolphe says she will marry that very evening. She thinks her spouse will be Horace, but Arnolphe’s intentions are different. He will be the spouse.
Act II ends with a famous verse, borrowed from Corneille’s Sertorius(V. 1867-1868):
Je suis maître, je parle : allez obéissez. [I am the Master, I speak : go obey.]
Act III
In Act III, Arnolphe instructs Agnès on how to be a good wife: she must be docile because the husband is in charge, etc. L’une est moitié suprême, et l’autre subalterne[.] (III, 2.) [The one half is supreme, and the other subordinate.] (The School for Wives) He describes the boiling cauldrons of hell.
Et qu’il est aux enfers des chaudières bouillantes Où l’on plonge à jamais les femmes mal vivantes. (III, 2.)
[There are boiling cauldrons in hell, into which wives who live wickedly are thrown for evermore.]
He then has her repeat:
« Les Maximes du Mariage ou les devoirs de la femme mariée, avec son exercice journalier. » [The Maxims of Marriage ; or the Duties of a Wife ; together with her Daily Exercise.] (III, 2).
Arnolphe speaks alone, a soliloquy (III, 3). Soliloquies are frequent in L’École des femmes.
Horace tells Arnolphe that Agnès has managed to attach a message to a rock she was to thrown at him. (III, 4).
Arnolphe speaks alone (III, 5: a soliloquy).
Act IV
Arnolphe cannot believe that Horace should be confiding in him. Horace is doing very well. He tells Arnolphe that Agnès has seen him and let him into her room. When she heard Arnolphe, she put Horace in a closet. They will be meeting that evening (IV, 7).
Chrysalde visits. There will be no supper, i.e. no wedding (IV, 8).
Act V
In Act V, Arnolphe thinks that Georgette and Alain have killed Horace, but they haven’t. In fact, Horace is quite well and Agnès is with him. To protect her reputation, he wishes for Arnolphe to look after her. Agnès thinks he loves her less than she loves him (dépit amoureux).Ironically she is being returned to Arnolphe.
Anagnorisis
Enrique is Agnès’ father. Her real name is Angélique. He has made arrangements to marry her to Oronte’s son. Oronte’s reaction is the following:
(…) Si son cœur a quelque répugnance, Je tiens qu’on ne doit pas lui faire résistance. (V, 7.)
[If it is repugnant to him, I think we ought not to force him. I think my brother will be of my mind.]
Horace learns that Arnolphe is now called Monsieur de la Souche, which is why he told him about Agnès. It turns out, however, that Enrique would like Oronte’s son Horace to marry Agnès. Arnolphe leaves.
Nature claimed its “rights.” Horace intended to marry the woman who happens to be Enrique’s daughter. So, all’s well that ends well.
Conclusion
I will break here, without a conclusion. It is too long to be posted with the plot. Moreover, this play was controversial.
[1] Paul Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle (Paris : Gallimard, 1948), p. 295-296. [2] René Bray is the author of La Formation de la doctrine classique en France. [3] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971 [1957]), p. 6.
Étude pour La Critique de l’École des femmes by François Boucher, sanguine
“Tendre Amour” (Jean-Philippe Rameau) – YouTube
Jean-Philippe Rameau by Carmontelle(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There is recurrence in Molière’s plays. In fact, my colleague James Gaines has published The Molière Encyclopedia. I have yet to read or purchase this book, but I suspect Dr Gaines, whom I met a long time ago, has listed the many jeunes premiers in Molière’s plays. I also suspect he has listed scenes of dépitamoureux (scorned love) and the one play Molière dedicated to that theme or motif. Le Dépit amoureux (1656 [Béziers] and 1659 [Paris]) was performed before Molière’s return to Paris and performed again in Paris, hence the two dates: 1656 and 1659.
The play may not have been committed to paper until Molière returned to Paris and his company became the Company of Monsieur,[1] the name given to the King’s brother. Moreover, a similar play, entitled La Cupidité, had been written by Italian dramatist Niccolò Secchi (see Le Dépit amoureux, Wikipedia).
Scapin, Edmond Geffroy
Scapin, Edmond Geffroy
The Plot
Recurrence happens at many levels. Although Tartuffe (1664 – 1669), Dom Juan (1665) and Le Misanthrope (1666) are independent plays, the plots are the plots of comedy: that of the farcical trompeur trompé (the deceiver deceived), as in the Précieuses ridicules, or the Shakespearean “all’s well that ends well” of most grandes comédies. A comedy may in fact combine both plots, or mythoi, which seems to be the case in Molière’s problematical Tartuffe,DomJuan and Le Misanthrope.
Moreover, literature has archetypes. The plots mentioned above are archetypal plots. As well, comedy always opposes the eirôn (as in ironic) and the alazṓn, or the blondin and the barbon.
Recurrence may occur within a genre or override genre. Our best source with respect to recurrence in general is Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism.[2] Archetypes, however, may be rooted in ancient rituals and older comedies: Greek comedy, the Atellan farce, Latin comedy (Plautus and Terrence), the commedia dell’arte. There is in fact a comic text. But let us return to dépit amoureux in Molière.
Le Dépit amoureux: a scene
Dépit amoureux (scorned love) may be a scene. In Act II of Tartuffe, Mariane tells Dorine, her maid, that Valère should fight off obstacles to their marriage. Mariane may well be doubting his love and therefore prone to jealousy. At any rate, in Tartuffe, her helplessness tends to mirror Orgon’s inability to be a tyrannical father without Tartuffe as if humane feelings were a sign a weakness. Orgon empowers Tartuffe who, in turn empowers Orgon. Similarly, Mariane would be at a loss if Dorine, her maid, did not step in to help her avoid a mariage forcé, a forced marriage. Dorine is the descendant of the astute zanni of the commedia dell’arte.
Le Dépit amoureux: an entire play
Le Dépit amoureux may also be an entire play. Molière’s Dépit amoureux (1656 – 1659) is a five-act comedy where the playwright focuses more on the young couples than on the blocking character. Le Dépit amoureux is a comédie d’intrigue, or comedy of intrigue, rather than a comédie de mœurs, or comedy of manners. A discovery, anagnorisis,[3] puts an end to the torment two young couples are subjected to. There is a great deal of suspense. The lovers[4] nearly leave one another and the audience can’t wait for the young couples to know the truth.
Our characters are the following. The name of maids and valets are between parentheses.
Lucile (Marinette) & Éraste(Gros-René)
Ascagne (Frosine) & Valère (Mascarille)
Albert (Lucile & Ascagne’s father)
Polydore (Valère’s father)
Métaphraste, a pedant and fâcheux
La Rapière, a swordsman
Before the play begins, Valère has married Ascagne, but he thinks he has married Lucile, Ascagne being a male. It is a secret marriage. Valère was the rightful heir to the fortune Ascagne has inherited.
Lucile and Ascagne are the daughters of Albert. If Ascagne had been a son, he would have been heir to a substantial amount of money. A neighbour had a son who died in early childhood. Ascagne, a girl, was given the dead child’s identity.
Lucile asks her maid Marinette to take a message to Éraste. She wants to meet him in the garden that very evening. We learn from Gros-René that Éraste is jealous of Valère (I, 2). The note reassures Éraste. All he needs to do, according to the message, is ask Albert, Lucile’s father, to give him his daughter in marriage:
Travaillez à vous rendre un père favorable. (Marinette to Éraste)
[Work on making a father agree.] (I, 3)
Éraste and Valère then bump into one another (I, 2). Valère is certain that Lucile loves him. Ascagne confides in Frosine, her maid. She says that she is a woman, that she is in love and that she has married Valère, but that the matter of the inheritance has yet to be resolved (II, 1).
We meet Albert, Lucile’s and Ascagne’s father. He wants to seek advice from the teacher Métaphraste, who is a mere fâcheux, a bore. The arrangement he made troubles Albert. He wants to put an end to his lie. Albert and Polidore, the fathers, meet. Albert wants to return the inheritance (III, 3), but Polidore says that Lucile is romantically involved with Valère, Polidore’s son, which is not acceptable (III, 4). Both fathers decide to repair the harm.
Valère meets Lucile and tells her that their marriage is no longer a secret. Lucile doesn’t know what Valère is talking about. As for Ascagne, who does not see her husband during the day, she is desperate. Her husband thinks he has married her sister. She tells Frosine that she will have to kill herself (IV, 1). Meanwhile, Éraste has decided no longer to love Lucile because she loves Valère (IV, 2). Later, Lucile also decides no longer to love Éraste. It is at this point that dépit amoureux reaches a climax. However, as it reaches a climax, Lucile and Éraste reveal to what extent they loved one another. Éraste walks Lucile home…
A swordsman, La Rapière, offers to help Mascarille and Valère (V, 3). There were duels at the time.
Monsieur Jourdain et son maître d’armes (Google Images)
Anagnorisis
But the moment of recognition has come (V, 4). Polidore arrives and calls Ascagne “ma fille,” my daughter, (V, 5). Valère apologizes to his father (V, 6) whose permission to marry he has not sought. He learns that Ascagne is a woman and that she, not Lucile, is the woman he married. Valère is surprised but he is pleased. He was the rightful heir, but, together, he and Ascagne are the rightful heirs. Valère forgives Lucile and Lucile forgives Valère. There will not be a duel.
Let’s look at the characters once again:
Lucile (Marinette) & Éraste (Gros-René)
Ascagne (Frosine) & Valère (Mascarille) (Ascagne has already married Valère)
Albert (Lucile & Ascagne’s father)
Polydore (Valère’s father)
Métaphraste, a pedant & fâcheux
La Rapière, a swordsman
Comic Relief
At the end of the play Lucile is about to marry Éraste and Marinette, Gros-René. For comic relief, the dépit amoureux, occurs between both masters and servants.
The dépit amoureux has been dissected. Interestingly, these scenes may start with spite, but the lovers cannot help but disclose their true feelings. There is irony in dépit amoureux.
In his Molière: a New Criticism, Will Moore wonders how Molière could have written so many plays in so little time. W. Moore’s answer to his question is that Molière dealt with the “Res privata: this gave to comedy both the setting and the characters. Molière’s plays deal with the stock comic characters, in everyday situation: parents, children, the doctor, the schoolmaster, the soldier, the valet, relatives, in-laws, suitors.”[5]
As Northrop Frye writes, “‘It’s supposed to be that way.’”[6] Comedies have a happy ending. They are formulaic. However, in the case of Le Dépit amoureux, we have an interesting image. Lucile asks Marinette to take a note to Éraste. She wants to meet him Éraste that very day in the evening and in a garden. The circumstances have changed. Lucile believes Éraste has chosen another spouse. But, having expressed a wish to separate, both tell how much they loved one another, which is how comedies are “supposed” to end.
“The obstacles to the hero’s desire, then form the comic resolution.”[7] As mentioned in an earlier post, Frye also writes that “the tendency of comedy is to include as many people as possible,” in which it differs from tragedy. Moreover, as quoted in an earlier post, “Tartuffe is sure of Orgon, and Molière is sure of his public.”[8]
However, despite the recurrences, each play is new, just as each day is new. It’s matter of intertextualité. Texts are written in the context of literature. So it follows that Molière’s plays are written in the context of comedy as a genre. But Molière’s Dépit amoureux presents a metaphor: the garden. Éraste and Lucile do meet in the garden as Lucile asked at the beginning of the play. Molière’s Dépit amoureux therefore reaches back to the Roman de la Rose, not literally but symbolically. Flowers die and are reborn and die and are reborn…
Therefore matters happen as expected. Éraste meets Lucile at the appointed hour, and they meet in a ‘garden,’ a symbol of fertility.
[1] Monsieur was Philippe de France, duke of Orleans. The brother to the king was the duke of Orleans. Louis Philippe Joseph d’Orléans (13 April 1747 – 6 November 1793) was guillotined during the French Revolution. The House of Orleans was a cadet branch of the Bourbon kings or the House of Bourbon. Louis XIV had one brother.
[2] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1957])
[3] “At the end of the play the device in the plot that brings hero and heroine together causes a new society to crystallize around the hero, and the moment when this crystallization occurs is the point of resolution in the action, the comic discovery, anagnorisis or cognitio” (Frye, p. 163).
[4] In 17th-century France, lovers, amants, were people in love. The term “lover” did not suggest sexual intimacy.
[5] Will G. Moore, Molière, a New Criticism (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 69 – 70.
