A few days ago, I attempted to write a short post on Jean de La Fontaine‘s La Grenouille qui se veut faire aussi grosse que le bœuf (The Frog Who Wished To Be As Big As The Ox). Although the genre and length differ, in both cases, boasting leads to devastating consequences. La Fontaine’s Site officiel no longer provides the text, in French and in English, of La Fontaine’s twelve books of fables. The new site may still be under construction, but it will be mostly for visitors to the Musée. At any rate, I decided to use les moyens du bord, sites such as Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, Wikisource, and other sources. I will update all my posts featuring a fable by La Fontaine.
La Fontaine’s La Grenouille qui se veut faire aussi grosse que le bœufis one of Æsop’s Fables. It is number 376 in the Perry Index. Now, The Frog and Ox is, in its broadest terms, a fable version of Dom Juan. Fables often have a farcical ending. They tell us to think of the consequences, but wrap the truth in a lie: animals do not speak, yet they do. Animals speak, yet they don’t.
Wikipedia’s entries on La Fontaine’s fables often contain not only a translation, but also images. Gutenberg’s [EBook #24108] was illustrated by John Rae. The fables were translated by W. T. (William Trowbridge) Larned. It is an edition for children and it is beautiful!
A Frog had an Ox in her view;
His bulk, to her, appeared ideal.
She, not even as large, all in all, as an egg hitherto,
Envious, stretched, swelled, strained, in her zeal
To match the beast in overall size,
Saying, “Sister, lend me your eyes.
Is this enough? Am I not yet there, in every feature?”
“Nope.” “Then now?” “No way.” “There now, as good as first?”
“You’re not anywhere near.” The diminutive creature
Inflated still more, till she burst.
La Grenouille qui se veut faire aussi grosse que le bœuf
Une Grenouille vit un Bœuf Qui lui sembla de belle taille. Elle qui n’était pas grosse en tout comme un œuf, Envieuse s’étend, et s’enfle, et se travaille Pour égaler l’animal en grosseur, Disant : « Regardez bien, ma sœur, Est-ce assez ? dites-moi : n’y suis-je point encore ? — Nenni. — M’y voici donc ? — Point du tout. — M’y voilà ? — Vous n’en approchez point. » La chétive pécore S’enfla si bien qu’elle creva. Le monde est plein de gens qui ne sont pas plus sages : Tout Bourgeois veut bâtir comme les grands Seigneurs, Tout petit Prince a des Ambassadeurs, Tout Marquis veut avoir des Pages. credit: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grenouille_qui_se_veut_faire_aussi_grosse_que_le_b%C5%93uf
La Fontaine, Molière, etc.
La Fontaine and Molière were contemporaries and friends, close friends, it would seem. La Fontaine was a pallbearer when Molière was buried under cover of darkness. Comedians were excommunicated. La Grange (Charles Varlet, sieur de la Grange) kept the books, le registre. We know, therefore, what fabric was used to make certain costumes, but we do not know why Jean-Baptiste Poquelin chose the name Molière. There are so many names. Molière did not say much about himself, nor did La Fontaine.
However, Dom Juan boasts, as does La Fontaine’s frog.No frog can be as large as an ox. It therefore bursts as do the bombastic characters of the commediadell’arte and those of Greek and Latin comedy. The alazṓn of ancient Greece could be a senex iratus, an angry old man, or a miles gloriosus, a boastful character. Dom Juan is a miles gloriosus, un fanfaron.
Molière also depicted his century in a natural fashion, using correct but ordinary French. French is called “la langue de Molière.” As well, Alceste (The Misanthrope) is an atrabilaire amoureux. There were four temperaments or humeurs. When discussing medicine and Molière, I mentioned the four temperaments or humeurs. Philinte is flegmatique. As for Dom Juan, who is “jeune encore” (still young), I believe he would be a sanguine temperament. These words are still used. I was told about the four “temperaments” as a child.
Moreover, these characters, including our boastful frog, are archetypes. The miles gloriosus is an archetype. We associate archetypes with Jungian psychology, but the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte are also archetypes, as is Æsop/La Fontaine’s boastful frog. Literature has its genres, archetypes, themes, motifs, cycles, etc.
However, until André Villiers, Molière was seldom looked upon as a philosopher, or philosophe (thinker). The philosophes of the French Enlightenment discussed individual rights versus collective rights and other subjects. This discourse, freedom mostly, begins in ancient Greece, if not earlier. Montaigne takes it up. It crosses the seventeenth century in France and elsewhere. It includes le libertinage érudit(Dom Juan). It finds an apex in John Locke (see the Age of Enlightenment), and is finely articulated in the writings of the philosophes of the French Enlightenment, such as Montesquieu and Voltaire, who met in the Salons. Rousseau‘s Le Contrat social was published in 1762. Freedom demands that certain freedoms be denied and some restored or instituted.
It is unlikely that in “Elfland”[1] a husband can abandon his wife. There may not be husbands and wives in Elfland. A small, but boastful frog is not a Dom Juan defying God, the devil according to some critics.[2] However, fables are anthropomorphic. So, boastful frogs are used to depict boastful human beings. Both our frog and Dom Juan pit themselves against the impossible, including Heaven … and burst. Bursting is a motif.
____________________ [1]G. K. Chesterton, “The Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy (New York: Dood, Mead and Company, 1943 [1908]), pp. 81-118. [2]Claude Reichler, La Diabolie: la séduction, la renardie, l’écriture (Paris : Éditions de Minuit, 1979), p. 17.
P. S. Please see David Nicholson’s comment, below. The remains, or what are believed to be the remains, of La Fontaine and Molière are side by side in the Père Lachaise cemetery
Pierrot, Charlotte, Dom Juan et Mathurine (Google)
Don Juan, Zerlina et Donna Elvira par Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (Google)
My posts on Molière’s Dom Juanoverlap. I must apologize. Space is needed when reading Molière’s Dom Juan. There are several layers of meaning. Moreover, Molière’s version of the Don Juan myth differs substantially from other versions.
For instance, we do not see Dom Juan seducing women time and again and marrying them. We see a Dom Juan who has abandoned a loving wife, Elvira. The deal Dom Carlos and Dom Alonse, Elvire’s brothers, propose cannot be faulted. Dom Juan has saved Dom Carlos and met Don Alonse. Both have assessed the problem and are ready to devise a way of restoring their sister’s honour. Dom Juan must return home to his wife. Society has its rules.
Freedom is not a free-for-all, or unlimited. One’s freedom stops where the freedom of others begins. This is the principle that allows human beings to live together in an orderly fashion, or safely. A driver stops at the red light. If he or she doesn’t, the consequences could be devastating. Similarly, love has its rules. André Villiers writes that:
“Love serves in effect as a chopping board for questions regarding the excellence of nature and the freedom of man. Many other developments are possible, but the relations between man and woman, which aliments [feeds] the most incendiary literature, pose in themselves the whole problem of individual freedom and social pressures. The behavior of a man in love points to his inclination and the value he places on it, to the limits he assigns to it and those imposed on him. This is the most pressing of concerns, the one that in the absolute is translated by defeat, and in practice, by all the compromises of everyday morality and the liberties taken in marriage.”[1]
The obligations, stopping at the red light, society has created are not based on religious beliefs.
“The limits imposed on the free exercise of our natural rights are not prejudices or religious beliefs, but the duties ‘necessary for human survival,’ as Locke was to say later on—the rights of Society. There is no other rule of virtue. However, this moral principle is equally valid for the inspiration of a love of humanity.”[2]
In the 17th century, France had yet to enter its “age of enlightenment,” but as peasants became bourgeois, buying offices, they had to devise rules that would allow them to live in freedom, protected, however paradoxical this may seem.
Molière was not harsh on his characters, but he knew there were societal covenants.
“Molière clearly saw the reciprocal relationship between spiritual problems on one side, and social and moral problems on the other. The pretext of a fable [the Dom Juan myth] allowed him to seize the subject in its most vital spot [marriage].”[3]
At no point does Molière admonish his libertin, the womanizer, except through Sganarelle’s words that are nonsense, but true. Womanizing is not freedom, but libertinage érudit was a fruitful meditation on the co-existence of the individual and society, societies that would be increasingly diverse.
Molière was conscious of his obligations. He had to house and feed his comedians and their families. La Grange (who played Dom Juan) kept a registre: earnings, expenses, the fabric and making of costumes, renovations to theaters and the daily life of Molière’s comedians. La Grange entered the troupe in 1659 and, after Molière’s death, he worked on publishing the complete works. That registre kiis a gift to posterity. Molière’s troupe was a “just society.” Molière’s health worried him considerably. There were people who counted on his writing comedies. They made a living as comedians. Having La Grange on board was a blessing.
“Dom Juan is not a dispensation from rules of conduct, nor is it a course in practical morality; but the wealth of ideas that its five acts suggest is considerable. It is a play that offers us ample material for meditation that is not limited to the problem of a particular period, and that leaves us marveling over so unique a work.”[4]
I read, but do not own a copy of Villiers’ Le Dom Juan de Molière, un problème de mise en scène (a problem of staging), 1947. I was in Vancouver, Paris, and Toronto. So, I borrowed books or read them in a library, which is what students do. It is still available. Great!
Beth Adler translated the above, and Jacques Guicharnaud included Villiers’ comments in his Collection of Critical Essays. The chapter madame Adler translated is entitled: L’Essence profonde du drame. In Guicharnaud’s book, the title of this chapter is “Molière Revisited” (pp. 79 – 89).
My favourite words in Villiers’ excerpt are Molière “made a metaphysical shudder go across the stage.” Two and two make four, but there is an unquantifiable dimension to the life of human beings. Sganarelle tells Gusman that he can’t understand why Dom Juan does not believe in the loup-garou (the werewolf) (Act One, Scene One). Molière is incredibly funny, even in farcical tragi-comédies.
In short, Molière’s Dom Juan is about an atheist who abandoned his wife, Done Elvire, was given every opportunity to mend his ways, but seized none. The beggar (le pauvre) is acceptably uncompromising, but Dom Juan isn’t. His behaviour is a transgression of social norms and stems from hubris. The death of the Commandeur may be looked upon as Dom Juan’s original sin. Therefore, when he refuses to return to Done Elvire, the Statue takes his hand and throws him in a fiery abyss. Those who boast… burst.
I could not include André Villiers’ comments in Part Three. Villiers’ chapter is a cogent meditation on Dom Juan.
You may have noticed that I now make more mistakes than before. Sometimes, I misspell words, and must correct posts after they are published. My posts overlap and I repeat myself. Life inflicted damages. But writing posts on Molière forces me to reread each play very carefully.
I am very grateful to all who read my posts despite delays and some editing.
[1] André Villiers in Jacques Guicharnaud, Molière, a Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1964), p. 87. [2]Guicharnaud, Loc. cit. [3] Guicharnaud, Op. cit., pp. 86-87. [4]Guicharnaud, Op. cit., p. 89.
Don Giovanni – Festival di Spoleto – “Don Giovanni a cenar teco…”
The Shipwreck of Don Juan by Eugène Delacroix, 1840 (wikiart.org)
DON JUAN, son of Don Louis SGANARELLE, valet of Don Juan
DONNA ELVIRA, wife of Don Juan
GUSMAN, horseman (écuyer) to Elvira
DON CARLOS, brother of Elvira
DON ALONSE, brother of Elvira
CHARLOTTE, peasant-girl
MATHURINE, peasant-girl
PIERROT, peasant
THE STATUE OF THE COMMANDER
LA VIOLETTE, a lackey of Don Juan
RAGOTIN, a lackey of Don Juan
M. DIMANCHE, merchant
LA RAMÉE, swordsman (spadassin)
ENTOURAGE OF DON JUAN
ENTOURAGE OF DON CARLOS AND DON ALONSE
A GHOST
Set in Sicily
We left Dom Juan wishing his father were dead, which so shocked Sganarelle that he spoke “nonsense,” yet told the truth. He could not speak directly because Dom Juan did not want to hear about “le Ciel,” Heaven. Sganarelle wrapped the truth into a lie. His speech is eloquence (IV. v, p. 56).
ACT THREE
The beggar
Two and two makes four
Dom Juan to the rescue
The Mausoleum
Liberty in love
The Beggar
Earlier (III. ii), Dom Juan had given a beggar a Louis d’or, asking him to swear. The Poor Man didn’t swear; he would rather starve. So, Dom Juan left him the Louis d’or “pour l’amour de l’humanité” (for the love of mankind).
Two and two makes four
In my last post, I wrote that Dom Juan’s belief is:
Je crois que deux et deux sont quatre, Sganarelle, et que quatre et quatre sont huit. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. i, p. 36)
[I believe that two and two makes four, Sganarelle, and that four and four makes eight.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 1, p. 31)
Dom Juan to the rescue
In the following scene (III. iv), Dom Juan saves Dom Carlos from attackers, not knowing he is Elvire’s brother:
La partie est trop inégale, et je ne dois pas souffrir cette lâcheté Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. ii, p. 39)
[One man attacked by three? The match is too lopsided, and I cannot allow such baseness.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 2, p. 34)
Dom Juan saves Dom Carlos’ life, incurring a debt. However, when his brother, Dom Alonse, joigns him, Dom Carlos learns that he was saved by the family’s “mortal enemy.”
Ô Ciel, que vois-je ici? Quoi, mon frère, vous voilà avec notre ennemi mortel? Dom Alonse (III. iii, p. 42)
O, Heavens! What am I seeing? What? My brother, you are here with our mortal enemy? Dom Alonse (III. 3, p. 36)
For the two brothers, having Dom Juan at arm’s length is a perfect opportunity to avenge their offended sister. But Dom Carlos postpones the moment they will avenge Done Elvire, Dom Juan’s abandoned wife. Dom Juan likes Dom Carlos who is indebted to Dom Juan.
Il est assez honnête homme, il en a bien usé, et j’ai regret d’avoir démêlé avec lui. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. v, p. 45)
[He seems quite honorable, he used me well, and I am sorry now to be mixed up in this affair with him.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 5, p. 39)
Il vous serait aisé de pacifier toutes choses. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. v, p. 45)
[Sir, it would be easy enough for you to make peace.] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (III. 5, p. 39)
Although he has killed the Commandeur and abandoned his wife, Done Elvire, Dom Juan’s life could be spared, Molière has situated the duel before the curtain rises. So, the death of the Commandeur remains a serious issue, but… Sganarelle is “all-too-human” valet.[1] He fears. But Dom Juan, his master, is a Grand Seigneur.
Et n’y craignez-vous rien, Monsieur, de la mort de ce commandeur que vous tuâtes il y a sixmois? Sganarelle à Dom Juan (I. ii, p. 9)
But do you fear nothing, Sir, from the death of the commander that you killed here six months ago? Sganarelle to Don Juan (I. 2, p. 7)
J’ai eu ma grâce de cette affaire. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I. ii, p. 9) [I had my right in this affair.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (I. 2, p. 8) Oui, mais cette grâce n’éteint pas peut-être le ressentiment des parents et des amis, et… Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I. ii, p. 9)
[Yes, but your right did not perhaps vanquish the resentment of his family and friends, and…] Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I. 2, p. 8)
The courts may have cleared Dom Juan of wrongdoing, but the Commandeur had a family. When one thinks that “two and two makes four,” one excludes elements that cannot be quantified. Don Juan believes he was cleared, so he washes his hand. Fatal error!
Liberty in love
Our pèlerins are then visited by Done Elvire who wishes Dom Juan could lie to her, and return to her. Would that urgent business had taken him. One could say that she pardons lies, but that is questionable. She has been abandoned and a loving wife just might roll back reality not to have been abandoned. But Dom Juan loves “liberty in love:”
Oui, mais ma passion est usée pour Done Elvire, et l’engagement ne compatit point avec mon humeur. J’aimela liberté en amour, tu le sais, et je ne saurais me résoudre à renfermer mon cœur entre quatre murailles. Je te l’ai dit vingt fois, j’ai une pente naturelle à me laisser aller à tout ce qui m’attire. Mon cœur est à toutes les belles, et c’est à elles à le prendre tour à tour, et à le garder tant qu’elles le pourront. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. v, p. 45)
[Yes; but my passion for Elvira is spent, and such jessies do not suit my humor. I love liberty in love, as you know, and I could not resign myself to enclosing my heart between four walls. I have told you twenty times, I have a natural inclination to let myself veer towards everything that attracts me. My heart belongs to all the beauties, and it is up to each of them in turn to assume it and to keep it as long as they can.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 5, p. 39)
The Mausoleum
In Act Three Scene Four Dom Juan and Sganarelle inadvertently enter the Commender’s burial ground. Sganarelle tries to pull Dom Juan away:
Monsieur, n’allez point là. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. iv, p. 46)
[Sir, you shouldn’t go there.] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (III. 4, p. 40)
Cela n’est pas civil, d’aller voir un homme que vous avez tué. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. v, p. 46)
It would not be civil to go see a man that you’ve killed. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. 4, p. 40)
But Dom Juan thinks it a civilité to approach the Commender’s coffin. In fact, the coffin opens and reveals a beautiful mausoleum and the Statue of the Commender. Sganarelle marvels effusively as Dom Juan assesses matters:
Ah, que cela est beau! les belles statues! le beau marbre! les beaux piliers! Ah, que cela est beau, qu’en dites-vous, Monsieur? Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. iv, p. 46)
[Ah! So beautiful! Beautiful statues! Beautiful marble! Beautiful pillars! Ah, it’s so beautiful! What do you say about it, Sir?] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (III. 4, p. 40)
Qu’on ne peut voir aller plus loin l’ambition d’un homme mort, et ce que je trouve admirable, c’est qu’un homme qui s’est passé durant sa vie d’une assez simple demeure, en veuille avoir une si magnifique pour quand il n’en a plus que faire. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. v, p. 46)
[That one cannot see the ambition of a dead man go any farther than this: and what I find most amazing is that a man who occupied, during his life, a simple enough abode, would want such a magnificent one for when he has nothing left to do.] Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. 5, p. 40)
At this point the statue comes alive. It bends its head and Dom Juan quite boldly asks Sganarelle to invite the Statue to supper.
Il aurait tort, et ce serait mal recevoir l’honneur que je lui fais. Demande-lui s’il veut venir souper avec moi. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (III. v, p. 46)
[And he would be wrong; and it would be to receive but poorly thehonor that I do him. Ask him if he would like to dine with me.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 5, p. 40)
Dom Juan uses civility (faisant de grandes civilités) to send away monsieur Dimanche (Sunday), his creditor. Form as substance …
Dom Louis
In Scene Four, Dom Juan listens to his father who would like his son to convert. Dom Juan is a womanizer who has left his wife.
Dom Juan does not respond. Instead, he invites his father to sit down so he would be more comfortable. Dom Louis leaves and as we know, as soon as he is out of hearing, Dom Louis wishes him dead.
Dom Juan has asked his valet never to remonstrate if “le Ciel” is a factor. But Sganarelle wraps the truth into a lie. He speaks obliquely.
Done Elvire
Dom Juan is then visited by a changed Done Elvire. She is veiled and preparing to go to a retraite, perhaps a convent, and wishes to pull out Dom Juan from a precipice. He must repent. But she goes on to say how much she has loved him:
Je vous ai aimé avec une tendresse extrême, rien au monde ne m’a été si cher que vous, j’ai oublié mon devoir pour vous, j’ai fait toutes choses pour vous, et toute la récompense que je vous en demande, c’est de corriger votre vie, et de prévenir votre perte. Sauvez-vous, je vous prie, ou pour l’amour de vous, ou pour l’amour de moi. Done Elvire à Dom Juan (IV. vi, p. 58)
[I loved you, Don Juan, with extreme tenderness, and nothing in the world was dearer to me than you. For you, I abandoned my duty, for you, I did everything; and all the recompense that I ask of you, is to correct your life, and avert your eternal loss. Save yourself, I beg you, either from love of yourself, or for love of me.] Done Elvire to Dom Juan (IV. 6, p. 51)
We can also hear Sganarelle say “pauvre femme” and “cœur de tigre” (heart of a tiger). Unbelievably, Dom Juan is charmed. He invites Elvire to spend the night in his home. She refuses. One suspects that Elvire has said more than she wanted.
Sais-tu bien que j’ai encore senti quelque peu d’émotion pour elle, que j’ai trouvé de l’agrément dans cette nouveauté bizarre, et que son habit négligé, son air languissant et ses larmes ont réveillé en moi quelques petits restes d’un feu éteint? Dom Juan à Sganarelle (IV. vii, p. 59)
[You know I think I felt a little glimmer of emotion for her, and even found something rather pleasurable in this new extravagance. Her careless clothes, languishing air and tears seemed to reawaken in me a few embers of a doused fire.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (IV. 7, p. 52)
The Statue has come for supper and invites Dom Juan to join “it” for supper the following day. Dom Juan accepts the Statue’s invitation saying that he will be accompanied by Sganarelle.
ACT FIVE
James Doolittle writes that “for Dom Juan the excellence of humanity consists in a man’s realization of his manhood by functioning fully as a man, not as an angel, not as a beast, not in passive potentiality, but in active fact. He must have the aspiration, the will, the knowledge, and the courage actively to prove himself superior to the rest of nature, as well as to whatever conventional opposition he may encounter which it does. This is what the Poor Man [the beggar] does, and Dom Juan wishes to function in like manner.”[2]
Let us keep the above in mind and continue reading.
At the very beginning of Act Five, Dom Juan makes his father believe that he has converted. Dom Louis can’t wait to tell his wife. Sganarelle wonders why Dom Juan does not yield the statue? It moves and speaks:
Vous ne vous rendez pas à la surprenante merveille de cette statue mouvante et parlante?
Dom Juan is perplexed:
Il y a bien quelque chose là-dedans que je ne comprends pas, mais quoi que ce puisse être, cela n’est pas capable, ni de convaincre mon esprit, ni d’ébranler mon âme, et si j’ai dit que je voulais corriger ma conduite, et me jeter dans un train de vie exemplaire, c’est un dessein que j’ai formé par pure politique, un stratagème utile, une grimace nécessaire, où je veux me contraindre pour ménager un père dont j’ai besoin, et me mettre à couvert du côté des hommes de cent fâcheuses aventures qui pourraient m’arriver. Je veux bien, Sganarelle, t’en faire confidence, et je suis bien aise d’avoir un témoin du fond de mon âme et des véritables motifs qui m’obligent à faire les choses. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (V. ii, pp. 63-64)
[I admit there was something in it that I don’t understand; but it was still not powerful enough to either convince my mind or shake my soul; and if you heard me say that I would amend my conduct and embark on an exemplary life, it was a design formed out of pure policy, a useful stratagem, a necessary grimace that I adopted in order to manage a father of whom I have need, and to protect myself, in the eyes of men, from a hundred irritating adventures which might arise. But I am really glad, which might arise. But I am really glad, Sganarelle, that I can confide in you, and I am happy that my soul has a witness to the real motives which oblige me to do the things I do.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (V. 2, pp. 56-57)
The fact that the statue moved is something Dom Juan cannot understand. His response is to become a hypocrite so he will be protected. He is so pleased Sganarelle can understand. But Sganarelle cannot understand. Don Juan does not believe in God, yet would feign devotion:
Quoi? vous ne croyez rien du tout, et vous voulez cependant vous ériger en homme de bien? Sganarelle à Dom (V. ii. p. 64)
[What? Though you don’t believe in anything at all, you would take the pose of a pious man?]
Sganarelle to Dom Juan (V. 2, p. 57)
Sganarelle is furious and will now remonstrate, without wrapping the truth into a lie:
Ô Ciel! qu’entends-je ici? Il ne vous manquait plus que d’être hypocrite pour vous achever de tout point, et voilà le comble des abominations. Monsieur, cette dernière-ci m’emporte, et je ne puis m’empêcher de parler. Faites-moi tout ce qu’il vous plaira, battez-moi, assommez-moi de coups, tuez-moi, si vous voulez, il faut que je décharge mon cœur, et qu’en valet fidèle je vous dise ce que je dois. Sachez, Monsieur, que tant va la cruche à l’eau, qu’enfin elle se brise; … Sganarelle (V. ii, p. 65)
[Heavens! Am I hearing this? All you lacked before to perfect your arsenal was this hypocrisy! And presto! Here it is: the acme of abominations. Sir, this latest manner is just insufferable and I can no longer bite my tongue. Do to me what you will, beat me, knock me senseless, kill me, if you wish: but I must air out my heart, and as a faithful valet I must tell you what I should. Know, Sir, that the more times a jug goes to the well, at last it will break; …] Sganarelle (V. 2, p. 58)
Dom Carlos and Dom Alonse return. They are ready to overlook Dom Juan’s escapade, but cannot let their sister become a recluse. Dom Juan must return to his wife. Our seducer switches to false piety to get rid of them. The society of the play has been fooled! Has it? No, the society of the play has doubled itself. The statue, the infinite, takes Dom Juan by the hand and throws him into a fiery abyss. He does not resist. He knew. He always knew …
Except for giving the beggar a Louis d’or and saving Dom Carlos, what has Dom Juan done that would allow him to claim superiority. Why should the statue, the infinite, be honoured to have supper with him?
A hero, he isn’t. We are told that he has “seduced” several women and forced fathers to fight duels they could not win, Dom Juan being much younger, stronger, and the superior swordsman.
He falls in love with Charlotte and promises marriage, only to turn his attention to what may be a lovelier face: Mathurine.
Jean Rousset has called him “un homme de vent,” a man of wind.[3] He will go the way the wind blows.
But Dom Juan, who so wishes to break barriers, is not belittled by Molière. What a fine opportunity to use machines.
Dom Juan is a five-act play, as in “grandes comédies,” but the plot formula used by Molière is that of the farce: trompeur trompé, the deceiver deceived.
____________________ [1]W. G. Moore, Molière: a New Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956 [1949]), p. 96. [2]James Doolittle, The Humanity of Molière’s Dom Juan in Jacques Guicharnaud, Molière, A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 101. [3] Jean Rousset, L’Intérieur et l’extérieur : Essais sur la poésie et sur le théâtre au XVIIe siècle (Paris : Librairie José Corti, 1968), p. 138.
DON JUAN, son of Don Louis
SGANARELLE, valet of Don Juan
DONNA ELVIRA, wife of Don Juan
GUSMAN, horseman (écuyer) to Elvira
DON CARLOS, brother of Elvira
DON ALONSE, brother of Elvira
CHARLOTTE, peasant-girl
MATHURINE, peasant-girl
PIERROT, peasant
THE STATUE OF THE COMMANDER
LA VIOLETTE, a lackey of Don Juan
RAGOTIN, a lackey of Don Juan
M. DIMANCHE, merchant
LA RAMÉE, swordsman (spadassin)
ENTOURAGE OF DON JUAN
ENTOURAGE OF DON CARLOS AND DON ALONSE
A GHOST
Set in Sicily
Dom Juan and Sganarelle
At the end of my first reading of Molière‘s Dom Juan(Part One), I quoted Sganarelle, Dom Juan’s valet, a role played by Molière. La Grange played the role of Dom Juan.
When Sganarelle hears Dom Juan say that he wishes his father, Dom Louis, were dead, he is indignant, but Dom Juan does not allow him to speak about “le Ciel,” heaven. Sganarelle’s living depends on Dom Juan. So, when Dom Juan dies, he thinks of his wages: Mes gages ! mes gages ! mes gages ! (My pay! My pay! My pay! ) (Sganarelle I. vi; I. 6). However, although Dom Juan will not accept remonstrances, Sganarelle manages to wrap the truth inside a lie. Such a response demonstrates ingenuity.
Will Moore writes that Dom Juan is “master” and Sganarelle, “man,” and that exchanges between master and man are:
… a dialogue on humanity. The master is inhuman in his scorn of others. The man is all too human. [1]
Man says:
Oui, Monsieur, vous avez tort d’avoir souffert ce qu’il vous a dit, et vous le deviez mettre dehors par les épaules. A-t-on jamais rien vu de plus impertinent? Un père venir faire des remontrances à son fils, et lui dire de corriger ses actions, de se ressouvenir de sa naissance, de mener une vie d’honnête homme, et cent autres sottises de pareille nature. Cela se peut-il souffrir à un homme comme vous, qui savez comme il faut vivre? J’admire votre patience, et si j’avais été en votre place, je l’aurais envoyé promener. Ô complaisance maudite,à quoi me réduis-tu ? Sganarelle à Dom Juan (IV. v, pp. 56- 57) [Yes, Sir, you are wrong to have suffered what he said to you and you should have thrown him out on his ear. Has anyone ever seen such impertinence? For a father to come and reproach his son, to tell him to correct his actions, to remember his birth, to lead the life of an honorable man, and a hundred others stupidities of a like nature! That it should be borne by a man like you, who knows how one must live! I marvel at your patience; and f I had been in your place, I would have sent him packing. O evil complicity! To what have you reduced me?] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (IV. 5, p. 50)
We meet Sganarelle in Act One, Scene One. Dom Juan is out of hearing, so Sganarelle tells Guzman that his master is forever marrying. He also points to the dichotomy in Dom Juan himself. Dom Juan “un grand seigneur, méchant homme.” Act One, Scene One also allows Molière to tell about Dom Juan’s numerous marriages.
Molière’s plots are as simple as possible. When the curtain rises, Dom Juan has abandoned Done Elvire, whom he took away from a convent and we are told that six months earlier he killed the Commandeur. Molière’s Dom Juan does not contain a seduction scene nor a duel, which is consistent with bienséances(étiquette), a rule in seventeenth-century theater.
However, the play ends with the death of Dom Juan. The statue of the Commandeur comes alive at the end of Act Three. The Commandeur, is the stoneguest. Dom Juan invites him to dinner the following day and, to Sganarelle’s horror, the statue comes to dinner and invites Dom Juan to dine with him the following day, which is when the Commandeur takes his hand and throws him into a fiery abyss. In Act One, Scene Two, Sganarelle asks Dom Juan whether he fears revenge on the part of the Commandeur. Dom Juan doesn’t, but Sganarelle believes friends and relatives might be angry. In Act One, Scene Three, Done Elvire visits Dom Juan. Dom Juan will not go home to his wife. She will therefore focus on revenge.
For the most part, I will skip Act Two (summary), the scene where Dom Juan nearly drowns, but is saved by Pierrot and falls in love with two peasant-girls: Charlotte and Mathurine, promising each one that he will marry her. Pierrot loves Charlotte. This scene contains a comedic element. Dom Juan runs from girl to girl whispering to each that she’s the one. At the end of Act Two, La Ramée warns that twelve horsemen are looking for Dom Juan.
However, I would like to contrast “master” and “man,” or master’s religion and man’s religion.
In Act Three, Scene One, Dom Juan says:
Je crois que deux et deux sont quatre, Sganarelle, et que quatre et quatre sont huit. Dom Juan à Sganarelle(III. i, p. 36)
[I believe that two and two makes four, Sganarelle, and that four and four makes eight.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (III. 1, p. 31)
Dom Juan is an atheist, but Sganarelle believes in God and marvels at what the human body can do:
Mon raisonnement est qu’il y a quelque chose d’admirable dans l’homme, quoi que vous puissiez dire, que tous les savants ne sauraient expliquer. Cela n’est-il pas merveilleux que me voilà ici, et que j’aie quelque chose dans la tête qui pense cent choses différentes en un moment, et fait de mon corps tout ce qu’elle veut? Je veux frapper des mains, hausser le bras, lever les yeux au ciel, baisser la tête, remuer les pieds, aller à droit, à gauche, en avant, en arrière, tourner… Il se laisse tomber en tournant. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. i, pp. 36-37)
[Well, my argument is that there is something admirable in man, no matter what you might say, which all the learned men cannot explain. Is it not a marvel that I am here, and that I have something in my head which makes me think a hundred different things at once, and that can make my body do what it would? That I can clap my hands, raise my arms, lift my eyes to Heaven, lower my head, move my feet, go to the right, go to the left, forwards, backwards, turn …
He falls while turning. Sganarelle to Dom Juan (III. 1, p. 32)
Pascal wrote that there were two entries to the soul: the mathematical and the intuitive mind [EBook # 18269]). L’esprit de finesse does not exclude l’esprit de géométrie (mathematical). On the contrary. Sganarelle is uneducated, but it turns out that he is right and that Dom Juan is wrong. Molière is true to the legend in which a statue, the Stone Guest, kills Dom Juan. Valets are not necessarily inferior to their master. Even the humble can sense what they cannot formulate. Sganarelle runs out of words and wishes Dom Juan had stopped him.
Oh dame, interrompez-moi donc si vous voulez, je ne saurais disputer si l’on ne m’interrompt, vous vous taisez exprès, et me laissez parler par belle malice. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (III. i, p. 36)
[Oh! Damn, interrupt me, if you please: I cannot argue with you if you don’t interrupt me: and you’re being silent as a stump out of deliberate malice.] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (III, 1, p. 32)
In Act Three, Scene Two, Dom Juan and Sganarelle meet a beggar. The beggar gives them directions, but he is poor and needs money. Dom Juan asks him to swear. The poor man refuses the money, but Dom Juan leaves a Louis d’or behind pour l’amour de l’humanité, for the love of humanity. (III. ii. p. 32)
In Act Three, Scene Three, Dom Juan saves Dom Carlos, Done Elvire’s sister, whom he doesn’t know. In Scene Four, Done Elvire’s other brother, Dom Alonse, enters and recognizes Dom Juan. Dom Carlos succeeds in delaying the revenge. In Act One, Guzman was surprised that a man of Dom Juan’s rank would leave a wife he married despite l’obstacle sacré of a convent.
These two scenes soften Molière portrayal of Dom Juan, but in Scene Five, as our pélerins continue walking in the direction of the city, they inadvertently reach the commandeur‘s monument. Dom Juan asked Sganarelle to invite the commandeur for supper the next day. Dom Juan remains defiant. In fact, this seems bravura, but it could also be mindlessness, insouciance, or perhaps a sense that one cannot escape one’s fate. Why else would Dom Juan silence Sganarelle? He may well feel guilty, but the consequences are unavoidable, by Dom Juan’s own mathematical standards: “two and two makes four.”
Which takes us to an essay by James Doolittle on the “humanity” of Molière’s Dom Juan and a reference to Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
We close here. There will be a third and final part.
Above is an image of Sganarelle praising tobacco. Molière‘s Dom Juan is an obscure play. As the curtain lifts, Sganarelle, Dom Juan’s valet, is praising tobacco. A critic called this praise of tobacco an encomium, but a paradoxical encomium. I believe I found this information in a book or article by Patrick Dandrey.
I read several books on Molière before entering a sabbatical I would devote to writing my book on Molière. It didn’t happen. The Chair of my department called me in and asked me to prepare two new courses in areas I was not familiar with. I could not say no because I feared him.
When I returned to work, I realized that during my absence, no one upgraded the language lab component. It took me two months to upgrade it. So, my workload triggered a serious episode of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. I was vulnerable and accepted to move to Sherbrooke. That was a mistake. One should not make serious decisions when one is unwell.
However, here I am preparing my final will. My mind took me back to what had been my home: Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
My University eliminated me, using a ruse, because of an illness I could manage, given normal circumstances. I can work on a full-time basis, if assigned a normal load of courses. What my university did to me was very wrong.
Beware of wills.
So, we are returning to Dom Juan and specifically to the relationship between Dom Juan, the character, played by La Grange, and Sganarelle, Molière’s role.
DON JUAN, son of Don Louis (Don Juan Tenorio)
SGANARELLE, valet of Don Juan
DONNA ELVIRA, wife of Don Juan
GUSMAN, horseman to Elvira
DON CARLOS, brother of Elvira
DON ALONSE, brother of Elvira
DON LOUIS, father of Don Juan
BEGGAR
CHARLOTTE, peasant-girl
MATHURINE, peasant-girl
PIERROT, peasant (in love with Charlotte
THE STATUE OF THE COMMANDER
LA VIOLETTE, a lackey (un laquais) of Don Juan
RAGOTIN, a lackey of Don Juan
M. DIMANCHE, merchant
LA RAMÉE, swordsman (un spadassin)
ENTOURAGE OF DON JUAN
ENTOURAGE OF DON CARLOS AND DON ALONSE
A GHOST (un spectre)
Dom Juan
(Bold characters are mine.)
Introduction
Dom Juan condemned
Sources
Introduction
I keep finding versions of Tirso de Molina’s The Trickster of Seville or the Stone Guest, the first Don Juan. However, this post is about Molière’s Dom Juan, a play in five acts and in prose, first performed on 15 February 1665 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. It was written rapidly and premiered less than a year after Molière’s Tartuffe (May 1664). Tartuffe, was first performed during Les Plaisirs de l’Isle enchantée, but it was condemned by the parti /cabale des dévots, not the once powerful Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. la Compagnie du Saint-Sacrementhad ceased to be active, faux dévots remained. In fact, secret societies were abolished in 1660.
Dom Juan withdrawn from the stage
Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre was very successful, financially and otherwise, which did not prevent Louis from asking Molière to withdraw his play after 15 performances. Louis XIV may have been advised to ask Molière to withdraw Dom Juan by the archbishop of Paris (24 March 1664 – 1 January 1671) and his Louis XIV’s former tutor, Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont (1606-1671). Hardouin de Péréfixe was a friend of Louis XIV and, to my knowledge, he was not an enemy of Molière.
Sources
Molière‘s Dom Juan is based on the legend of Don Juan, as told by Spanish baroque dramatist Tirso de Molina, the author of El Burlador de Sevilla y convidado de Piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest). The Stone Guest is a statue of a Commandeur whom Don Juan killed when he attempted to avenge his dishonoured family. The Commandeur or Governor’s daughter, Doña Ana, was seduced by Don Juan.
Dorimon(d)’s Le Festin de pierre ou le Fils criminel [the criminal son] (1559) and the
Sieur de Villiers’ plagiarized Le Festin de pierre ou le Fils criminel (1661).
Villiers was known as Philipin. He was an actor at l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, Paris’ finest theatrical venue. Dorimond and Philipin wrote tragi-comédies, a blend of comedic and tragedic elements. Versions of the Don Juan legend are often called a dramma giocoso, an Italian designation for comedies that are not altogether comedic. (See Dramma giocoso, Wiki2.org.) It seems, in fact that Le Festin de pierre ou le Fils criminel (Dorimond and Villiers) would have Italian sources:
So, Molière’s Dom Juan would be rooted in Italian comedy, which brings to mind Mozart’s Don Giovanni (K. 527), composed on a libretto written by Mozart’s Italian librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte. All versions of the Don Juan myth are rooted in Tirso de Molina’s Trickster of Seville, the Stone Guest (1625), but although these versions constitute a network, they may differ from country to country, and Lorenzo Da Ponte was an Italian librettist.
Dom Juan
Leporello’s “catalogo”and “l’épouseur à toutes mains.”
Rights and justice: a world upside down
Woman and God: a doubling
Sganarelle and Dom Juan: reproaches
There are similarities between Dom Juan and Don Giovanni. For instance, Leporello’s “catalogo,” i.e. quantity, is Sganarelle’s “l’épouseur à toutes mains,” (every hand’s groom) Don Giovanni and Dom Juan accumulate seductions, promising marriage. In Act One, Scene 1, when Gusman, Done Elvire’s horseman, speaks with Sganarelle, Molière’s role, Sganarelle says the following:
Tu me dis qu’il a épousé ta maîtresse, crois qu’il aurait plus fait pour sa passion, et qu’avec elle il aurait encore épousé toi, son chien, et son chat. Un mariage ne lui coûte rien à contracter, il ne se sert point d’autres pièges pour attraper les belles, et c’est un épouseur à toutes mains[.] Sganarelle à Gusman (I. i, p. 3)
[You tell me that he has married your mistress: believe too that he will do much more for his passion than this, and that he would also marry you, your dog and your cat. A marriage costs him nothing to contract; he uses no other traps for the lovelies, and blithely marries on all sides.] Sganarelle to Guzman (I. 1, p. 3)
In fact, Molière’s Dom Juan piles up his conquests. He compares himself to Alexander the Great:
Enfin, il n’est rien de si doux, que de triompher de la résistance d’une belle personne; et j’ai sur ce sujet l’ambition des conquérants, qui volent perpétuellement de victoire en victoire, et ne peuvent se résoudre à borner leurs souhaits. Il n’est rien qui puisse arrêter l’impétuosité de mes désirs, je me sens un cœur à aimer toute la terre; et comme Alexandre, je souhaiterais qu’il y eût d’autres mondes, pour y pouvoir étendre mes conquêtes amoureuses. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I. ii, pp. 6-7)
[There is nothing so sweet as to triumph over the resistance of a beautiful woman, and in this matter I have the ambition of conquerors, who march perpetually from victory to victory, and know no limits to their wishes. There is nothing that can halt the impetuosity of my desires: I have a heart to love all the world; and like Alexander, I wish that there were other worlds, so I could march in and make my amorous conquests there as well.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (I. 2, p. 6)
For Molière’s Dom Juan, satisfaction is yet another conquest. It is not to be found in genuine love and in sexual gratification, which may also characterize Don Giovanni‘s protagonist, Don Juan. If Dom Juan has left Done Elvire, his wife, it is because he has tired of her. He must seduce other women:
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 attrayants d’une conquête à faire. Don Juan à Sganarelle (I. ii, p. 6)
[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.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (I. 2, p. 6)
Rights and justice: a world upside down
Moreover, in Dom Juan’s world, women have a right to be “conquered” by him in the name of justice. In this respect, what Dom Juan calls justice are a series of transgressions at two levels, societal and sacred. When Dom Juan claims women have a right to him, he turns societal norms upside down. Not only does Dom Juan wish to go from victory to victory, but all women have a right to be “conquered,” which is arrogant, but a comedic element. Molière was writing a comedy and comedies are Saturnalian.
… la constance n’est bonne que pour des ridicules, toutes les belles ont droit de nous charmer, et l’avantage d’être rencontrée la première, ne doit point dérober aux autres les justes prétentions qu’elles ont toutes sur nos cœurs. (…)
[No, no: constancy is only suitable for buffoons: all beautiful women have the right to charm us, and the advantage of being seen first should not steal from the others the just claims they have on our hearts.
(…)
… j’ai beau être engagé, l’amour que j’ai pour une belle, n’engage point mon âme à faire injustice aux autres; je conserve des yeux pour voir le mérite de toutes, et rends à chacune les hommages, et les tributs où la nature nous oblige. Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I. ii, p. 6)
[I would be bound in vain; and the love I have for one beautiful woman does not oblige my soul to commit an injustice against the rest; I reserve the right of my eyes to see the merit of all, and to render to each the tributes obliged by nature.] Dom Juan to Sganarelle (I. 2, p. 5)
This is an upside-down view of social norms and conventional morality. It is also sinful, l’oubli du Ciel, and defies reason. Guzman is Done Elvire’s horseman (écuyer). Done Elvire and her brothers, Dom Carlos and Dom Alonse, will never persuade Dom Juan to return home to his wife. At the end of Act Two, La Ramée, a swordsman, tells Dom Juan that:
Douze hommes à cheval vous cherchent, qui doivent arriver ici dans un moment, je ne sais pas par quel moyen ils peuvent vous avoir suivi, j’ai j’ai appris cette nouvelle d’un paysan qu’ils ont interrogé, et auquel ils vous dépeint. L’affaire presse, et le plus tôt que vous pourrez sortir d’ici, sera le meilleur. La Ramée à Dom Juan (II. v, pp. 31-32)
[Twelve men on horseback are looking for you and might arrive here at any moment. I don’t know how they have followed you; but I learned of it from a peasant they had questioned. Time presses, and the sooner you leave the better.] La Ramée to Dom Juan (II. 5, p. 28)
Society and God: a doubling
Twelve horsemen may be seeking Dom Juan, but he will not go back home. Done Elvire’s party, her brothers Dom Carlos, Dom Alonse and his men, may find Dom Juan, but he will defy both the society of the play and God: the “sacred obstacle of a convent,” (“l’obstacle sacré d’un couvent”) (I. i, p. 2). He will feign devotion and speak as though he and God were on a nearly equal footing.
Guzman wonders why Dom Juan would be unfaithful to his wife. He so wanted to marry Done Elvire that she left a convent.
Quoi, ce départ si peu prévu, serait une infidélité de Dom Juan? Il pourrait faire cette injure aux chastes feux de Done Elvire? Gusman à Sganarelle Non, c’est qu’il est jeune encore, et qu’il n’a pas le courage. Sganarelle à Gusman Un homme de sa qualité ferait une action si lâche? Gusman à Sganarelle Eh oui; sa qualité! La raison en est belle, et c’est par là qu’il s’empêcherait des choses Sganarelle… (I. i, p. 2).
[What? Could it be that this unforeseen departure is due to an infidelity on the part of Don Juan? Could he be capable of such an injury to Donna Elvira’s chaste fires? Guzman to Sganarelle
[No, but he is still young, and does not have the heart ….] Sganarelle to Guzman
Could a man of his quality commit an action so vile? Guzman to Sganarelle
Oh, yes, his quality! That’s vain reasoning, for it’s by this quality that he holds himself above all things.] Sganarelle to Guzman (I. 1, pp. 2-3)
The society of the play cannot convince Dom Juan that there would be safety in living honourably. When Dom Juan puts on the masque of the faux dévot, when he feigns devotion, Done Elvire’s brothers are powerless. Dom Juan is an aristocrat who uses marriage, a sacrament, to sin. As Sganarelle points out:
… il faut que le courroux du Ciel l’accable quelque jour[.] Sganarelle à Gusman (I. i, p. 4)
[It’s enough that the wrath of Heaven will overtake him some day; …] Sganarelle to Guzman(I. 1, p. 3)
Sganarelle and Dom Juan: reproaches
Yes, Dom Juan is too young, he uses his rank to seduce women, and he has no obvious love for God. In fact, it has been suggested that the legendary Don Juan waits too long before saying an Act of Contrition. (See Dom Juan, Wiki2.org.) An Act of Contrition will free a sinner of sinfulness. But Molière’s Dom Juan does not repent. However, when Sganarelle tells Juan that he disapproves of his marrying woman after woman. But he invites Sganarelle to express an opinion on his behaviour. Dom Juan, he will not allow reproaches. He is defiant until the very end, but he is pushed into hell. Sganarelle tells him that he is make fun, or mocking Heaven, which bothers Dom Juan. Dom Juan is incorrigibly bombastic. He is truly too young and he doesn’t have a heart.
En ce cas, Monsieur, je vous dirai franchement que je n’approuve point votre méthode, et que je trouve fort vilain d’aimer de tous côtés comme vous faites. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (I. iii. p. 6)
[In that case, Sir, I would say honestly that I do not approve at all of your habits, and that I find it deplorable to love on all sides as you do.] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (I. 3, p. 5)
Ma foi, Monsieur, j’ai toujours ouï dire, que c’est une méchante raillerie, que de serailler du Ciel, et que les libertins ne font jamais une bonne fin. Sganarelle à Dom Juan (I. iii, p. 8)
Holà, maître sot, vous savez que je vous ai dit que je n’aime pas les faiseurs de remontrances. (I. iii, p. 8)
[My faith! Sir, I’ve always heard it said that it’s an evil mocking to mock Heaven, and that libertines never find a good end. Sganarelle to Dom Juan (I. 3, p. 7)
Hey! Dr. Dunce Scotus! I’ve made it clear before that I have no love for the makers of reproaches.] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (I. 3, p. 7)
As Sganarelle points out so aptly: Dom Juan is “jeune encore” (I. i, p. 2), or he is “still young” and he doesn’t have a heart (I. 1, pp. 2-3). He believes his title has bestowed upon himself complete immunity.
Sganarelle has listened to Dom Louis, Dom Juan’s father. Dom Louis would like his son to live up to his rank. As soon as his father can no longer hear him, Dom Juan says:
Eh, mourez le plus tôt que vous pourrez, c’est le mieux que vous puissiez faire. Il faut que chacun ait son tour, et j’enrage de voir des pères qui vivent autant que leurs fils. Il se met dans son fauteuil. Dom Juan à son père, trop loin pour l’entendre (IV. v, pp. 56-57) [And die as quickly as you can, it’s the least you could do. Every dog should have its day, and it fills me with rage to see fathers who live as long as their sons.] Dom Juan to his father who is out of hearing distance. (IV. 5, p. 50)
Oui, Monsieur, vous avez tort d’avoir souffert ce qu’il vous a dit, et vous le deviez mettre dehors par les épaules. A-t-on jamais rien vu de plus impertinent? Un père venir faire des remontrances à son fils, et lui dire de corriger ses actions, de se ressouvenir de sa naissance, de mener une vie d’honnête homme, et cent autres sottises de pareille nature. Cela se peut-il souffrir à un homme comme vous, qui savez comme il faut vivre? J’admire votre patience, et si j’avais été en votre place, je l’aurais envoyé promener. Ô complaisance maudite, à quoi me réduis-tu? Sganarelle à Dom Juan (IV. v, pp. 56-57)
[Yes, Sir, you are wrong to have suffered what he said to you and you should have thrown him out on his ear. Has anyone ever seen such impertinence? For a father to come and reproach his son, to tell him to correct his actions, to remember his birth, to lead the life of an honorable man, and a hundred others stupidities of a like nature! That it should be borne by a man like you, who knows how one must live! I marvel at your patience; and if I had been in your place, I would have sent him packing. O evil complicity! To what have you reduced me?] Sganarelle to Dom Juan (IV. 5, p. 50)
Conclusion
I am publishing this post without a conclusion. I have to stop working for lack of energy. Part of the conclusion has to do with Molière’s use of the truth to lie, or a lie to tell the truth. We will look at the last quotation of this post.
Writing about Dom Juanhas been a pleasure. In fact, I received a comment about libertinage in 17th century France.
Le Libertinage
I read René Pintard’s Le Libertinage érudit dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle when I was writing my thesis, years ago, but I do not own a copy of this book. Wikipedia FR has an entry on the subject and the book is summarized, by GRIHL FR. But obtaining the material one requires to write a book is truly difficult.
By virtue of his profession, a playwright and an actor, Molière is associated with libertinage érudit. Actors were excommunicated. But libertinage érudit and libertinage are not synonyms. Molière did not lead a dissolute life.[1] However, his Tartuffe (1664) and his Dom Juan (1665) were attacked by la cabale des dévôts. He had to rewrite Tartuffe twice before the play could be performed (1669). As for his Dom Juan, although it was a great success, it closed after 17 performances and was not published until 1682, with passages removed. In 1683, Dom Juan was published in Amsterdam,
La Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement
The most important group of dévots, or faux-dévots, was the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, a secret society. Louis XIV himself could not protect Molière fully. Not that impiety went unpunished in Dom Juan, but that devotion is linked to religion and that there were in France genuinely devout persons as well as faux-dévots, persons feigning devotion. Feigned devotion is a powerful mask, and all the more so when it fills the needs of a potentially tyrannical, but frightened pater familias.
It so happens that Orgon needs Tartuffe and is therefore easily blinded by his own needs. He sees what he wishes to see and hears what he wishes to hear. Only Orgon and his mother, Madame Pernelle, see a dévot in Tartuffe. Other members of Orgon’s family can tell that Tartuffe is a hypocrite and a rogue, but they do not have a strong-box, une cassette, containing potentially incriminating evidence. A friend of Orgon was involved in the Fronde and Orgon has his strong-box. So Orgon gives Tartuffe the cassette to breathe easier. However, Tartuffe takes it to the Prince, “our monarch,” endangering Orgon.
Le fourbe, qui longtemps a pu vous imposer, Depuis une heure, au Prince a su vous accuser, Et remettre en ses mains, dans les traits qu’il vous jette, D’un criminel d’État, l’importante cassette, Dont au mépris, dit-il, du devoir d’un sujet, Vous avez conservé le coupable secret. Valère à Orgon (1835-40, V. vi, p. 104) [The villain who so long imposed upon you,
Found means, an hour ago, to see the prince,
And to accuse you (among other things)
By putting in his hands the private strong-box
Of a state-criminal, whose guilty secret,
You, failing in your duty as a subject,
(He says) have kept.] Valère to Orgon (V. 6)
The prince, our monarch, “ennemi de la fraude” (v. 1906, p. 107) sees that Tartuffe is a criminal. Orgon is forgiven. (V. last scene). L’Exempt (an officer) returns the cassette to Orgon as well as the deed to his property.
“The surprise twist ending, in which everything is set right by the unexpected benevolent intervention of the heretofore unseen King, is considered a notable modern-day example of the classical theatrical plot device Deus ex machina.” (See Tartuffe, Wiki2.org.)
The above could have been taken out of my thesis. I studied the pharmakós in six of Molière’s plays. The thesis was entitled: L’Impossible entreprise: une étude sur le pharmakós dans le théâtre de Molière. (The Impossible endeavour:a study of the pharmakós in Molière’s Theatre). In Molière’s comedies, the society of the play may be powerless, hence the use of a deus ex machina. Doublings, as in L’Avare(The Miser), are another recourse. In L’Avare, a second (real and benevolent) father surfaces. Truth be told, Tartuffe goes to prison, but he took little more than he was given. He was given the cassette by Orgon. The cassette comes back to haunt Orgon (V. i; V. 1), which makes him, to a significant extent, a scapegoat.
Feigned devotion is a mighty mask. Dom Juan fools Dom Louis, his father, and silences Dom Carlos who is ready to fight a duel that will avenge his sister, Done Elvire. There were real dévots in 17th France, but several members of the cabale desdévôts were faux-dévots. In 17th century France, one could also use casuistry, which could legitimize nearly all sins. Tartuffe reassures Elmire using casuistry. Moreover, there were dévots and faux-dévôts in high places. The Prince de Conti and theSieur de Rochemont were aristocratic censeurs.
The Alazṓn: the senex iratus and the miles gloriosus
There is recurrence in Molière’s plays and intertextuality, a concept pioneered by Julia Kristeva. I should note that the alazṓn can be a senex iratus or a miles gloriosus. Plautus wrote a Miles gloriosusbased on Aristophanes‘Alazṓn, now lost. Under the heading Alazṓn, two types of blocking character are mentioned: both the senex iratus and the miles gloriosus, the braggart soldier, can be the alazṓn, or blocking character. Dom Juan is a miles gloriosus. I updated a post. We do not see young lovers opposing a heavy father, but Dom Juan is a miles gloriosus and, therefore, an alazṓn.
Varia
the Baroque
sources
“pièce assez mal construite ”
I did not mention Baroque aesthetics in Dom Juan, but he has been called an homme de vent, windy. Nor did I mention sexuality, except briefly, in another post. Dom Juan would like to be an Alexandre, Alexander the Great. The word to conquer puts an emphasis on numbers. Sganarelle tells the peasant-girls that his master is an “épouseur du genre humain,” (II. iv); “the groom of the entire human race” (II.4, p. 27), but there is no eroticism in Dom Juan.
As for sources, most scholars mention Tirso de Molina’s (24 March 1579 – 12 March 1648) Burlador de Sevilla. He is considered the source in what could be described as the “Don Juan cycle,” but Molière’s source may have been Italian. Two of Molière’s contemporaries wrote a Don Juan: Dorimond (1659) and Villiers (1660).[2]Whether they influenced Molière cannot be ascertained. But if Don Juan is a legendary figure, when Molière wrote his Dom Juan, the story had circulated for several years.
Finally, Dom Juan has been considered a poorly-constructed play, une pièce “assez mal construite.”[3] It takes us from grands seigneurs to Pierrot, a peasant who does not want to lose his fiancée to Dom Juan. The play does seem poorly constructed. For instance, I have mentioned the picaresque nature of Molière’s Dom Juan. Picaresque suggests a horizontal line broken, with each encounter, by a vertical line (see Paradigms and Syntagms). It seems Dom Juan and Sganarelle are walking along, meeting artistocrats and peasants, all the way to the supernatural Statue. The trompeur trompé (deceiver deceived) plot formula is circular.
We must stop here. This is our last post on Dom Juan. I should note that Louis XIV banned secret societies in 1666. I doubt he did so to eliminate the Société du Saint-Sacrement. I suspect absolutism precluded secret societies.
[1] Earlier literary criticism used biography to explain a literary masterpiece. Biography is not irrelevant, but it is one of many referents.
[2] Maurice Rat, ed., Molière, Œuvres complètes (Paris: La Pléiade, 1956), p. 895.
[3] Maurice Rat, loc. cit.
Love to everyone 💕
Don Giovanni’s “La ci darem la mano,” encore
Samuel Ramey and Kathleen Battle with Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan
The title page of Le festin de pierre, also known as Dom Juan, the play by Molière, published in Amsterdam in 1683. This is the first publication of the uncensored edition. (Wiki2.org.)
My last post on Molière’s Dom Juan is informative: the Russian connection. However, the text I published was replaced by various drafts. Nothing could lead me back to the text I had published. I returned the post to “private,” to no avail.
Moreover, whenever I tried to quote Molière, in French and English, my post disappeared.
One must keep humble, so I decided to stop working on it. It was published!
My main point is finding that “Dom Juan” (original spelling) is a comedy that uses the “deceiver deceived” (trompeur trompé) plot formula. Imagine a balloon and a needle. Dom Juan keeps defying heaven and earth and shows he is a mediocre human being, despite his rank, that of Grand Seigneur. By delaying the revenge, Dom Carlos shows that noblesse oblige. Dom Carlos is one of Done Elvire’s two brothers.
In Molière’s Dom Juan, the legendary burlador, is a méchant homme. He’s hoping his father will die as soon as possible. Dom Louis, Dom Juan’s father, believes that noblesse oblige. Aristocrats should be honnêtes hommes and never boast. According to La Rochefoucauld, un grand seigneur is an honnête homme and honnêteté precludes boasting: « L’honnête homme est celui qui ne se pique de rien». A gentleman does not boast.
For Dom Juan, his title provides liberty. It’s a mask.
I did not include the scene where Dom Juan explains his “morality:” two and two are four. If two and two are four and four and four are eight, God strikes.
Nor did I include a brief discussion of love. According to Don Juan, love is kept alive through jealousy. One loves a person who is loved. Madame de La Fayette wrote a novel in which the moment love is reciprocated, it dies. Her novel, a masterpiece of psychological novel, is entitled La Princesse de Clèves(1678). It will be discussed separately.
Molière’s Dom Juan is “the last part in Molière’s hypocrisy trilogy, which also includes The School for Wives and Tartuffe.”
Molière’sDom Juan does not seem a comedy. It lacks a young couple trying to marry despite a heavy father’s objections. However, it borrows elements from the Italian commedia dell’arte. Molière’s Dom Juan has in fact been labelled a dramma giocoso, a playful or comic drama, blending tragic and comical elements, which violates the rules of 17th-century French drama.
For instance, Sganarelle is a descendant of Brighella, a zanni in the Italian commedia dell’arte. He and Dom Juan are nearly always together, which makes for an incongruous relationship: Dom Juan is the master and Sganarelle, the valet. Molière’s play is aSaturnalia.
The Characters and other Elements
Our main characters are Dom Juan and his valet,Sganarelle(Mozart’s Leporello), played by Molière when the play premièred on 15 February 1665.
Dom Juan is Done Elvire’s husband. She has left a convent to marry him, but he no longer wishes to be her husband. He wants to be “free.” Done Elvire’s brothers, Dom Carlos and Dom Alonse, must avenge Done Elvire: (point d’honneur, point of honour), but fail to do so. When Dom Carlos speaks to Done Juan (V. iii), the latter has become a faux dévot, a man who feigns devotion to serve earthly needs. It appears Molière is meditating his Tartuffe (1664).
The play also features two peasant girls, Charlotte and Mathurine, whom Dom Juan tries to “seduce.” He’s told Charlotte that he will marry her, but her fiancé, Pierrot, puts up a fight. Dom Juan has also told Mathurine that he will marry her. However, there is no successful seduction in Molière’s play, not even a kiss, except on Charlotte’s hand, that she describes as black. This scene is the “La ci darem la mano,” of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (see video below).
Molière’s play on Don Juán is singularly devoid of eroticism. His Dom Juan is compiling conquests, as does Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. However, the catalogo Dom Juan keeps is a metaphorical rather than literal catalogo. Yet, at the beginning of the play (I. i) Sganarelle tells Gusman, Done Elvire’s escort and servant, that Dom Juan is the very devil. He is a grand seigneur [lord] méchant homme, an aristocrat, but an evil man.
In fact, other than the above-mentioned events the plot of Molière’s Dom Juan consists in a series of fruitless attempts to save Dom Juan from eternal damnation. The individuals begging Dom Juan to convert are Sganarelle (1), Dom Juan’s valet, Done Elvire (2), Dom Juan’s abandoned wife, and Dom Louis (3), Dom Juan’s father.
When Sganarelle warns his master, whom he calls a pèlerin, a pilgrim, that he may be punished, he is silenced immediately, not by an angry, but verbose or quiet Dom Juan. Sganarelle falls short of words and when his master will not speak, he collapses (III. i).
Noblesse oblige
Similarly, when Dom Louis, Dom Juan’s father, bemoans the fact that aristocracy is no longer as it was, Dom Juan listens, but does not hear. When Dom Louis is finished, Dom Juan simply invites him to sit down so he can speak more comfortably (IV. iv). In 1665, the noblesse oblige of earlier years has been replaced by self-interest.
Later (IV. vi), Done Elvire implores Dom Juan to mend his ways as God is about to strike. He lets her speak, but as she is leaving, he invites her to stay overnight. It is late. Done Elvire leaves. It is as though she had not spoken a word.
Dom Juan as faux dévot
At the beginning of act V, Dom Louis returns and praises his son who now feigns devotion. Dom Louis does not notice that Dom Juan is putting on an act. Moreover, it is as a faux dévot that Dom Juan dismisses Dom Carlos. He will not live with Done Elvire as man and wife, because it is God’s will (V. iii).
Retribution
However, Dom Juan has killed a Commandeur. There is a statue of the Commandeur with whom Dom Juan is to have dinner. At the appointed hour, the statue of the Commandeur takes him by the hand which causes the earth to move and engulf Dom Juan.
Conclusion
The above is an incomplete introduction to Molière’s Dom Juan, not to say ledonjuanisme. I have left out the encounter with Francisque, a poor man, and uneven fight, &c. But this is a beginning.
Don Juan, trans. by Brett B. Dodemer, Digital Commons (pdf)
Don Juan, ou le Festin de pierre is Gutenberg’s [Ebook #5130] FR
Tartuffe; or, the Hypocrite is Gutenberg’s [Ebook #2027]
Baryton Dmitri Hvorostovsky has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. He’s being treated in the best facilities, in London, England, but these are shattering news. He has a very rich voice. I hope he soon recovers.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky died on 22 November 2017. May he rest in peace.
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]
According to Jules Brody, Molière’s Dom Juan has committed a “single crime,” 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 would lie 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]
However, Dom Juan has also trivialized God himself, which is not a mere detail. He will not repent.
Non, non, il ne sera pas dit, quoi qu’il arrive, que je sois capable de me repentir,
allons, suis-moi. (V. v)
[No, no, it will never be said, whatever happens, that I repented. Now, follow me.]
Dom Juan. [V.v, p. 61]
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).
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