History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now/Classical



The three main dramatists of the Classic or Neo-Classic period, starting at the death of King Louis XIII in 1643, are Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), Jean Racine (1639-1699), and Molière (1622-1673). In the entire corpus, several plays include adaptations of previous work. The study of adaptations is useful for detecting shifts of moods in a period or from one period to the next. “It is thanks precisely to the recurrence of identical themes in the course of several generations of playwrights that the student of literature can detect, in at least one form, the evolution of attitudes, ideals and customs. The comparison is in fact facilitated by the similarities of basic situation, for contrasts and variations between original play and its later adaptation are the more discernable for having sprung from the same set of premises” (Collins, 1966 p 22).

"The plot of the classical French drama is simpler than that of the modern romantic drama, but more complex than the ancient classical plot. The plots of Corneille and Racine hold a position intermediate between the simplicity of Aeschylus and Alfieri and the intricacy of Shakespeare and Hugo. The interest of the French classical plot lies rather in its intensity than in its complication. There is a disposition to emphasize only one supreme moment, or crisis, the action moving on unswervingly and impressively towards one grand climax, and then descending with directness and concentration to its inevitable catastro phe, more or less clearly foreseen from the first. On the whole, however, unlike the Greek and the earlier French drama, which foretells the dénouement from the beginning, the French classical drama prefers uncertainty and curiosity as to the outcome. By this means compression and economy, both of attention and of interest, are secured. This limiting of the story to one great crisis presents the exhibition of the whole of a life history or era, discourages the development of character, and excludes minor actions, irrelevant episodes, sub-plots, and parallel actions. As a result of this compression the dramatist avoids the leisurely movement of the epic and divests his action of everything that is irrelevant, digressive, or merely accessory" (Bruner, 1908 p 331).

"As the action of the Greek tragedies is always carried on in open places surrounded by the abode or symbols of majesty, so the French poets have modified their mythological materials, from a consideration of the scene, to the manners of modern courts. In a princely palace no strong emotion, no breach of social etiquette is allowable, and as in a tragedy affairs cannot always proceed with pure courtesy, every bolder deed, therefore, every act of violence, everything startling and calculated strongly to impress the senses is transacted behind the scenes, and related merely by confidants or other messengers" (Schlegel, 1846 p 256). "Their whole system of expositions, both in tragedy and in high comedy,is exceedingly erroneous. Nothing can be more ill-judged than to begin at once to instruct us without any dramatic movement. At the first drawing up of the curtain, the spectator’s attention is almost unavoidably distracted by external circumstances, his interest has not yet been excited; and this is precisely the time chosen by the poet to exact from him an earnest of undivided attention to a dry explanation,- a demand which he can hardly be supposed ready to meet...How admirable again are the expositions of Shakespeare and Calderon! At the very outset they lay hold of the imagination and when they have once gained the spectator's interest and sympathy they then bring forward the information necessary for the full understanding of the implied transactions. This means is, it is true, denied to the French tragic poets, who, if at all, are only very sparingly allowed the use of any thing calculated to make an impression on the senses, any thing like corporeal action and who, therefore, for the sake of a gradual heightening of the impression, are obliged to reserve to the last acts the little which is within their power" (Schlegel, 1846 pp 272-273).

= Pierre Corneille =



After 1643, Corneille continued the strong work from the previous reign with "Rodogune" (1644). "Rodogune" "if it did not quite reach the level of Polyeucte, was an exquisite tragedy, abounding in dramatic effect, and characterized by a greater regard for the play of intrigue than the author had previously shown. The character of Cléopatre, Queen of Syria, is one of the most terrible ever created for the stage" (Hawkins, 1884 vol 2 p 151). Although Lockert (1958) complained that Rodogune’s proposal of matricide “is entirely out of character” (p 65), this opinion comes from wanting an admirable main character to remain admirable throughout.

The play "is certainly, by virtue of the enormity of the characters, the violence of the passions, the vastness of its crimes, the most romantic of his tragedies; it is constructed with the most skilful industry; from scene to scene the emotion is intensified and heightened until the great fifth act is reached; but if by incomparable audacity the dramatist attains the ideal, it is an ideal of horror” (Dowden, 1904 p 168). “Cleopatra seizes the cup in desperation and drinks. The poison works and she is led away to die. Here is one of the few stage pictures in French classical tragedy and more action than usual on the stage. The power of the scene is undeniable. In its way it is the most striking fifth act of the century; but it helped to make Corneille exaggerate the importance of incidents and complex situations” (Stuart, 1960 p 408).

"Corneille gives full vent to his love of invention, manipulation, and theatricality. From the unorthodox exposition to the harrowing ‘coup de théâtre’ with which the play closes, Corneille assaults his spectator with shocking demands, upsetting threats, and surprising revelations...Seleucus champions an ideal whose concrete expression takes the form of non-action...Antiochus possesses the sureness of temper his brother achieves only by stages...It is he who acts constantly as a restraining force on his more tempestuous twin...He relies on entreaties and tears...When we first meet [Rodogune], she is a noble figure filled with disquiet and foreboding...At times Rodogune seems as ambitious for the crown...as Cleopatra...Rodogune is as wily as Cleopatra, but not really immoral...In demanding the twins to kill their mother, Rodogune seems to be acknowledging that circumstances force us to the choice of a non-value over a value...Circumstances will not disappoint this hope...Never once does Cleopatra express doubts as to any technique to maintain power...She is the most self-reliant of Corneille’s heroes to date, as her refusal to keep even Laonice in her confidence indicates, and she is also the most self-possessed, as the shifting developments of the last act reveal...She is an undoer of ‘natural knots’ as much as she is a weaver of ‘secret knots’...She dies unilluminated because...there are no higher powers than those of Cleopatra” (Nelson, 1963 pp 139-161).

"Rodogune"


Time: Antiquity. Place: Syria.

Text at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.123600

The twin brothers, Antiochus and Seleucus, are waiting for their mother, Cleopatra, queen of Syria, to reveal at last which of the two is the eldest and thereby destined to claim the throne. She has always kept this information secret to reign alone. Both brothers love Rodogune, princess of Parthia, kept a prisoner in Syria. Nevertheless, it is agreed that the elder will not only become king but also win her hand in marriage. Cleopatra hates Rodogune for having married her husband while he was imprisoned in Parthia and who had almost seized the crown from her until she killed him. Antiochus is ready to yield the crown for Rodogune's hand, but, to his grief, so is Seleucus. "She must marry, not you, not me," Antiochus concludes, "but me or you, whoever will be king." Both affirm that they are content to see their mother reign in their place, which gladdens Cleopatra, but yet she expects more from them, proclaiming that the crown belongs to whoever kills Rodogune. The brothers are astonished and silently grieve at this decision. She in turn is astonished at their silence. "Will you marry one to have her flout me," she cries,"to submit my destiny at the hands of my slave?" The brothers agree to visit the princess in prison, where Antiochus asks her to reveal the man she loves, but she refuses. "The choice you offer me belongs to the queen," she says. Seleucus warns her of the queen's hate, to be countered by choosing a husband, but she fears by choosing one to create two enemies instead of one. At last, pressed on both sides, she says she will give her hand to the man who avenges their father's murder. However, alone with Antiochus, she admits she loves him more and no longer wants to become "the prize of crime" but rather will wait to see who the queen announces as the rightful king. Antiochus reveals to his mother that they both love Rodogune. Feigning to weaken at these news, Cleopatra says: "Rodogune is yours together with the empire." But yet, alone with Seleucus, she reveals he is the eldest after all and yet might lose all. Despite his mother's wrongs against him, he answers as she wishes. "Hope to see in me but friendly feelings towards my brother and zeal for my king," he declares. Nevertheless, to continue her reign alone, she has her son killed and pretends to join Antiochus and Rodogune for the marriage ceremony. She gives Antiochus the nuptial cup, a poisoned one, but before he can put it to his lips, he receives news of his brother's murder, for which Cleopatra blames Rodogune and she Cleopatra. Antiochus hesitates about what to do, except to press the ceremony forward. As he reaches for the cup, Rodogune, suspecting poison, prevents him and asks for a servant to swallow it. Feeling caught in her own trap, Cleopatra reaches for the cup herself, drinks it, and dies. A grieving Antiochus commands that "the nuptial pomp be changed to funeral designs".

=Jean Racine=



While Corneille wrote a myriad of comedies and tragedies, Racine wrote only tragedies except for "The litigants" (1668). Among Racine's most admired tragedies are "Britannicus" (1669) based on the son (41 AD- 55 AD) of Roman emperor Claudius in histories of Ancient Rome, mainly that of Tacitus (58-120 AD), “Mithridate” (Mithridates, 1673), more particularly Mithridates VI or Mithridates the Great (162-63 BC), the king of Bosphorus in Asia Minor, "Phèdre" (Phaedra, 1677), adapted from the "Hippolytus" of Euripides (480-406 BC) and the "Phaedra" of Seneca (12-65 AD), and "Athalie" (Athaliah, 1691), based on a Biblical source, 2:11 Kings. Contrary to Grein's opinion (1905, p 282), it is false that Racine is "a great orator rather than a great playwright". Among many other factors, what makes his plays intensely dramatic is the element of surprise: the characters are often startled by turn of events and each other's behavior, creating great fear and worry. A second recurrent theme is sibling rivalry, often leading to murder.

Clark (1939) pointed out that the style of "Britannicus" is of a Tacitean terseness. The character studies are striking. Indeed, Agrippina "is shown not merely as the ambitious plotter but as the mother who resents the loss of her influence over her son, not merely as the clever dialectician but as the woman liable to imprudent fits of temper...Burrhus’ virtue is mitigated by certain prudential considerations. Narcissus is a villain of a subtlety and psychological insight never before seen in drama outside of Shakespeare...Narcissus arrives with the news that preparations are complete for the poisoning of Bntannicus. Note the cool cynicism of his first speech, his quick utilization of Nero’s revised decision to enforce still more strongly his own point of view, and the short, sharp struggle with Nero’s conscience which he brings to triumphant issue by his poisonous allusion to Agrippina’s boastings" (pp 154-162). “As a single instance among many of Racine’s consummate craftsmanship in this play, we may note the scene in which Nero, concealed behind a curtain, listens to Britannicus and Junia. For tension, for terror, for sheer force and effectiveness, it can hardly be matched by any similar situation in all the dramas of the world...Derived largely from Tacitus, [the play] seems to catch something of its terse power...[Racine] meant to portray Britannicus as a high-spirited and pathetic youth; he did portray him as a little master who is at times unmanly and affected. Junia, on the other hand, is a lovely creation- of all Racine’s women the least sophisticated and, unless perhaps Monime, the most appealing- with the simplicity, the directness, the sweet dignity and the fresh charm of young girlhood...[Agrippina is more impressive as a character than Nero], for she surpasses the emperor in force of personality, intelligence, energy, and courage...The conception of the emperor...is in the main the traditional one, but not all its phases are equally stressed; that of the virtuoso, which was perhaps dominant in him, is clearly revealed only once...though at a crucial point...a young man fundamentally cruel, vain, and vicious, whose predisposition to evil at length causes him to break from restraints hitherto imposed by his weakness and timidity” (Lockert, 1958 pp 305-307). Like many others, this critic’s opinion of the portrayal of Britannicus is biased by his dislike of the courtly type, too gallant for his taste. "Nero...is portrayed with a vigour which the author often missed in his treatment of male personages, and anything more winsome and pathetic than Junie...it would not be easy to conceive. Every other important character in the play, too, is finely drawn and contrasted the fierce Agrippine...the virtuous Burrhus...the rascally Narcisse...and the generous and ingenuous Britannicus...No want of sensibility or dramatic skill was betrayed, and the diction was by far the most refined yet heard in a French tragedy" (Hawkins, 1884 vol 2 p 31). But other critics criticize the portrayal of Agrippina relative to Tacitus' portrayal. "The woman who poisoned the aged emperor, her husband, who encouraged her son in the wildest excesses of his passion, and stood not aghast at incest of the strangest sort, if so she might secure that ascendency which was slipping from her grasp, stands alone in the lurid light of a fiendish age. An imperious and dominating spirit, she formed a fitting subject for the tragedian's art. But Racine was all too weak for such an argument. His gentle and sensitive spirit shrank from the crude atrocities of his subject, and, while striving to render to the full the overweening ambition of Agrippina and the jealous haughtiness of Nero, he left in the background, or at least mitigated as much as possible, the more revolting traits" (Hallard, 1895 p 63).

The main character in “Mithridates", "with his sanguinary greatness and violent passions, more nearly accords with the conception of a tragic hero held by Shakespeare and his fellow Elizabethans than does any other protagonist of Racine...Menace lurks in his smoothest words...His indefatigable, undismayed resilience in defeat, his grandiose plans and overweening hopes of success against mighty Rome are revealed with a virile eloquence...Monime is generally considered the most attractive of Racine’s heroines, gentle and innocent though she is, she displays self-respecting pride, a quiet courage, strength of will, and devotion to duty which makes her Corneillian in Racine’s own, very different way” (Lockert, 1967 pp 356-361). "Mithridate is the tragedy of a man who feigns death to save his life, and, in an ultimate reversal, thereby loses the last little part of his life over which he has dominion. The loss is not only for one man. Neither the death of Mithridate nor the survival of Monime and Xiphares changes the tragic nature of existences that from the beginning are a kind of death in life" (Campbell, 1997 p 597). "The king treats his sons as circumspectly and defensively as he treats Monime. Despite some feeble efforts to the contrary, Mithridate displays little paternal affection for Pharnace whom he rightly suspects of treason. He usually refers to his son as 'prince', a term whose connotations are pejorative since he always calls his beloved son, Xiphares, 'my son'. Initially Mithridate shows great respect for Xiphares, but at the basis of his affection are the same considerations which prompted his anger at Monime and Pharnace: Xiphares, unlike his brother and the queen, has proven himself consistently loyal" (Cloonan, 1976 p 516). "I think that our dramatist has scarcely written anything grander than the speech of Mithridates in which he expounds his policy to his sons” (Van Laun, 1883 vol 2 p 290). "Of the four principals, Monime, who shares qualities with many of Racine's heroines, causes the least difficulty. She is a queen in name only, a prisoner of her father's promise to Mithridate, and thus resembles Andromaque. A tender victim, she is not unlike Iphigenie; a lover willing to renounce her beloved forever, she resembles Berenice...Monime is willing to do herself violence in order to fulfill her duty, and will not drop the pose of the dutiful daughter and obedient intended...Once tricked into admitting her love for Xi- phares, Monime refuses to marry Mithridate and remains unaffected by his pleas or threats...In giving up Xiphares, she consciously mutilates herself in order to carry out a duty which remains foreign to her innermost being. Her resignation is sad, not glorious" (Kuizenga, 1976 pp 281-282). “The heroine of ‘Mithridates’, the noble daughter of Ephesus, Monime, queen and slave, is an ideal of womanly love, chastity, fidelity, sacrifice, gentle, submissive, and yet capable of lofty courage. The play unites the passions of romance with a study of large political interests hardly surpassed by Corneille” (Dowden, 1904 p 213).

In "Phaedra", Racine "will closely follow Euripides in the scene where Phaedra confesses her secret to the nurse. Then he will borrow from Seneca the false rumor of Theseus’ death, for this will make Phaedra’s love for Hippolytus seem somewhat less criminal and thereby make her relax her watch over herself slightly. Besides, by putting Hippolytus in a position of power as his father’s successor, it will give an excuse for Phaedra to seek an interview with him in order to assure his protection to her own son. Finally, it will provide a sensational ‘péripétie’ in itself and pave the way for a still more striking one when Theseus returns. Then, when Phaedra has her interview with Hippolytus, he will introduce Seneca’s idea of having her blurt out a declaration of love to the latter...[The most important change in dramatic character was in Hippolytus from Euripides' chaste misogynist to a lover, which drives Phaedra's passion as it becomes] exasperated by jealousy...Phaedra takes her place with a very select few: Antigone, Lear, Faust- in the gallery of the world’s tragic portraiture" (Clark, 1939 pp 201-207). “Euripides was his chief source...He followed Seneca, however, in making Phaedra herself declare her love of Hippolytus and in making the nurse originate the slander against him...In destroying Hippolytus, [the Greek and French Phaedra] are actuated by the desire to protect their good repute and thereby their children. The Phaedra of Euripides combines this motive with resentment at the young man’s excessive abuse of her and at his failure to comprehend the agonized struggle which she has made to preserve her purity; the Phaedra of Racine, when in a revulsion of feeling she is ready to save Hippolytus at any cost, is checked by the discovery that he loves Aricia, which fills her with jealous madness and then, in consequence, with utter horror at herself and with such confusion of soul that she is paralyzed, as it were, and incapable of action until too late...The Greek Phaedra is less...the frenetic and morbid prey of her passions...[relative to] the [great] self-loathing of Racine’s Phaedra...Hippolytus must express himself like a young gentleman, with all the customary phrases of gallantry...Between what is said of Hippolytus and all that he himself says there is a hopeless incongruity...To set himself up as a judge of his father’s legitimacy and to undertake to use the power and prestige which he has gained as Theseus’ supposedly faithful son to frustrate his father’s will and despoil his father’s heir in favor of an hereditary enemy as soon as the hero-king and not unloving sire (he believed) is helpless in death, is an ugly combination of complacent self-righteousness and disloyalty...The only reason...he has for silence is that it would be unbecoming of him to offend his father’s ear with the shameful truth; and this consideration seals his lips though at the risk of his life and though his beloved Aricia, as well as he, would gain by his speaking out. But when he goes into exile, he plans to enlist friends at Argos and Sparta and make war on his country to regain his rights and Aricia’s!” (Lockert, 1958 pp 388-395). Lockert’s opinion of the portrayal of Hippolytus is biased by his dislike of the gentleman rather than the huntsman, as if the two cannot be combined in the same man. It is also a common bias for a critic to expect that a tragic victim possess no fault except the one he dies for. Hippolytus’ silence is not motivated solely to avoid offending his father’s ear but to preserve his father’s marriage and the stability of his reign. But as an exile, the right motion of a princely character is to regain what he has unjustly lost. According to Schlegel (1846), "the poet who selects an ancient mythological fable, that is, a fable connected by hallowing tradition with the religious belief of the Greeks, should transport both himself and his spectators into the spirit of antiquity; he should keep ever before our minds the simple manners of the heroic ages, with which alone such violent passions and actions arc consistent and credible; his personages should preserve that near resemblance to the gods which, from their descent, and the frequency of their immediate intercourse with them, the ancients believed them to possess; the marvellous in the Greek religion should not be purposely avoided or understated, but the imagination of the spectators should be required to surrender itself fully to the belief of it. Instead of this, however, the French poets have given to their mythological heroes and heroines the refinement of the fashionable world, and the court manners of the present day; they have, because those heroes were princes ("shepherds of the people', Homer calls them), accounted for their situations and views by the motives, of a calculating policy, and violated, in every point, not merely archaeological costume but all the costume of character. In 'Phaedra the princess is, upon the supposed death of Theseus, to be declared regent during the minority of her son. How was this compatible with the relations of the Grecian women of that day? It brings us down to the times of a Cleopatra" (p 260). “The return of Theseus radicalizes the division between extreme passion and rational duty. Phaedra denounces Hippolytus, who will not reveal the truth to his father. In Euripides, Hippolytus does not speak because he has sworn an oath of silence and does not expect to be believed in any case. In Racine, duty towards his father commends silence...Condemning him, Phaedra has acted as if Hippolytus himself stood at a passionate extreme, ready to reveal an offense to his chastity; her passion has blinded her to his moderate reasonableness” (Calarco, 1969 p 132). “Phèdre’s declaration to Hippolyte, though closely modeled on a passage of Seneca’s Phaedra (also known as Hippolytus), Racine’s brilliant French rendering of Phèdre’s almost hallucinatory fusion of the father and the son into a pure, fantastic object of her desire in the second act is no doubt one of the most perfect moments in the entire history of French drama, indeed of French poetry…We often think of fantasy as a desire projected into the future, but Phèdre delves into the past, saying that her husband, when he first came to Crete when he was to be sacrificed with other Athenian youth to the Minotaur, looked exactly like Hippolyte. She then successively peels away at the received image of the past, asking why Hippolyte himself (though too young) had not come with the other heroes, then supposes that he had come, that her sister Ariadne had given him rather than Thésée the thread that allowed escape from the labyrinth and then revises the fantasy still more to say that she herself, Phèdre, would have taught him the twists and turns of the tunnels, not content with giving him a thread. She would have accompanied him and would have, with him, either survived, or perished” (Lyons, 2020 p 153). "In the first act of 'Phaedra', we have the scene of the avowal of her criminal love for Hippolyte, and in the fourth act the astonishing recoil of her nature on the confidante Oenone, who has dared to call in the example of the gods to palliate Phèdre's evil desires. The suggestion has gone too far, and the weak confidante has but hastened Phèdre's self-destruction" (Jourdain, 1912 p 158). "Racine represents [Phaedra] as a woman struggling with all the energy of a high and noble nature against the illicit yearnings instilled into her by Aphrodite, as loathing herself with increasing intensity as she sinks lower and lower into the abyss of guilt, as refusing to accuse Hippolyte until she has been craftily goaded to frenzy by the nurse, and finally as a prey to bitter though unavailing remorse. It was a great original conception, worked out with all the force that could be imparted to it by analytic insight, imaginative art, and beauty of diction" (Hawkins, 1884 vol 2 p 121). "One could hardly refrain from expatiating upon the delicacy and firmness of drawing in the characterization of the heroine, 'daughter of Minos and Pasiphae', the subtlety with which from the first she insinuates herself, with all the morbid fascination of her moral distemper and personal disorder, into the blood and senses of the audience. The debut of all Racine's heroines is tremendously effective- Monime's is a good instance; but Phèdre's is, in especial, insidious...Nor would a critic at large be likely to overlook the knowingness of Hippolyte's 'psychology' or the propriety of his preferences- only a novice in love would have had eyes for Aricie when Phèdre was by- nor would begrudge a word or two for Aricie herself, 'la belle ‘raisonneuse' of the salons, who takes love to be some kind of syllogism...Phèdre is not merely a sufferer and a patient; hers is the debility of innate depravity, and invalided and graceless as she is, her hapless soul is the prey of the whole passionate intrigue to which she is exposed" (Frye, 1922 pp 223-225). “The added circumstance of Hippolyte’s love for Aricie is necessary to bring out the complete conception of the character of Phèdre. This motive is not a mere sub-plot. It gives the reason for Phèdre’s silence when she knows Hippolyte is going to his doom. A passionate woman would have saved him even at the price of confessing her guilt, but a jealous woman would act as she does” (Stuart, 1960 pp 413-414). In the description of Hippolytus' death, “Theramenes appears to deliver the messenger speech...Therames’ narrative is so vivid that we may imagine we have watched him at the moment of death. The speech is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative, morbid, powerful, self-contained" (Arnott, 1977 p 94)."The use of mythological allusion and imagery similarly provides Racine with a wealth of poetry of which few poets not even Virgil, Milton, or Keats- have availed themselves with such effective economy. Erechtheus, Minos, Pasiphae, the Cretan labyrinth and the Minotaur conjure up the atmosphere of an heroic age, when gods and men lived in closer contact, when monsters were challenged by mortals and women ravished by the gods. A new and greater dimension is afforded the play by such allusions to the myths which seventeenth-century audiences revered from their early training in classical lore" (Peyre, 1974 p 97). “Containing some of the most seductively beautiful verses in the annals of French poetry, Phèdre is one of the very few works in the Western tradition that can rival the loftiest tragic creations of the Greeks...It is the matter of the tragedy, passion, calumny, and murder committed in the tightly restricted confines of the family that continues across the centuries and despite enormous social and political changes to resonate in contemporary audiences” (Greenburg, 2020 p 15).

"Athaliah" “is perfect in versification, finished in character-sketches, well conceived, marvelously executed, and enriched with such choruses, that though we miss the sensuous passion of his first successful play, the religious feeling so percolates the whole, without becoming obtrusive or overpowering, that I have no hesitation in calling it the most perfect of all French scriptural tragedies. It is, I imagine, also the only French tragedy, which is full of bustle and action” (Van Laun, 1883 vol 2 p 297). The play "is not only his most finished work, but I have no hesitation in declaring it to lie, of all French tragedies the one which, free from all mannerism, approaches the nearest to the grand style of the Greeks. The chorus is conceived fully in the ancient sense, though introduced in a different manner in order to suit our music, and the different arrangement of our theatre. The scene, has all the majesty of a public action, expectation, emotion, and keen agitation succeed each other, and continually rise with the progress of the drama: with a severe abstinence from all foreign matter, there is still a display of the richest variety, sometimes of sweetness, but more frequently of majesty and grandeur. The inspiration of the prophet elevates the fancy to flights of more than usual boldness. Its import is exactly what that of a religious drama ought to be: on earth, the struggle between good and evil; and in heaven the wakeful eye of providence beaming, from unapproachable glory, rays of constancy and resolution. All is animated by one breath- the poet's pious enthusiasm, of whose sincerity neither his life nor the work itself allow us a moment to doubt" (Schlegel, 1846 p 293). Racine "celebrated the salvation of the race by showing how the seed of David was preserved in the person of Joas. While the latter gives, as he should, merely the impression of a boy brought up in an ecclesiastical sanctuary, the two leading characters, Joad and Athalie, are most effective, one a Hebrew prophet, inspired to save his people and turned aside from his purpose by neither considerations of personal safety, honesty, nor the social code of manners the other, an old queen, seeking desperately to retain the power she had won by murdering her own grandchildren, vengeful and able, momentarily touched by the sight of the mysterious child she has found in the temple. To these Racine added Mathan, traitor to his religion and his race, l±e Hitler’s honorary Aryans, and Abner, the military leader who appreciates his duty to the queen, but is won over by Joad to more vital obligations. These characters, the profoundly religious inspiration of the play, the Hebraic note, mastered by Racine as by no one in France since d’Aubigné, the lyrical element in the choruses and in Joad’s prophecy, the spectacle of the temple, and the admirable structure have made many regard Athalie as Racine’s finest play, though it lacks the intense inner struggles of several of his earlier tragedies” (Lancaster, 1942 p 92). "The powerful characterization of the guilt-laden queen and of the sweet-tempered lad, the effective dialogue, and the magnificent lyrics of this tragedy create an impression of rare majesty. If some of us must find its labors academic, it is difficult to withhold one's admiration for Racine’s virtuosity or deny this work the right to be considered the greatest of all biblical plays (Gassner, 1954a p 279). "The dramatic characters are "portrayed with a sureness of touch that reveals the matured master...Abner is a very subtle study of the temporizer...Mathan makes a fine Biblical pendant to the profane Narcisse in 'Britannicus'. But the two crowning glories of the cast are, of course, the old Athalie, half queen, half witch, and her mortal foe, the priest Joad, that thundering, foaming cataract of divine fury" (Clark, 1939 pp 267-268). “The great protagonist is the Divine Being; Providence replaces the fate of the ancient drama. A child (for Racine was still an innovator in the French theatre) was the centre of the action; the interests were political or rather national, in the highest sense; the events were, formerly, the developments of inward character; but events and characters were under the presiding care of God” (Dowden, 1904 pp 216-217). “The second act...containing...the queen’s dream, her interview with the child in which with diabolical cunning she besets him with all her wiles yet is baffled at every turn by his simple innocence, her sudden outburst of fury at Jehosheba when she feels herself balked, and her marvellous revelation of her inmost heart...is the finest act that Racine every wrote...The other characters...the gentle, anxious Jehosheba, the worthy but commonplace Abner, and Mattan the arch-villain [are] delineated with sure and delicate strokes...The real protagonist...is God himself, who after suffering this blood-stained, impious woman to live long in her iniquity, at last majestically avenges the moral law upon her...It is not merely just retribution...The little Joash is the last surviving descendant of David in unbroken male succession, and it is from David’s line of kings that the promised Messiah...is to be born” (Lockert, 1958 pp 407-411). In Athaliah’s interview of the boy, “although her very life is involved, her reaction...is surprisingly tender...obviously due to the cry of blood...We begin to realize Athaliah’s tragic position. She has safety within her grasp, but her instinctive tenderness is indeed a kind of fatal blow since it prevents her from taking Mattan’s advice and have the boy killed as a precautionary measure...Athaliah, in not being able to recognize Joash until it is too late, is...a helpless victim of an inescapable superhuman persecution” (Cherpack, 1958 pp 82-84). “In his study of Athalie herself, perhaps the most unflinching portrait of moral disintegration that he ever drew, his hand had lost nothing of its cunning, and his vision had gained a new dimension of apocalyptic power“ (Speaight, 1960 p 119).

“Great art in constructing a plot; exact calculation in its arrangement; slow and successive development rather than force of conception, simple and fertile; which acts simultaneously as if by process of crystallisation around several centres in brains that are naturally dramatic; presence of mind in the remarkable skill in winding only one thread at a time; skill also in pruning and cutting down rather than power to be concise; ingenious knowledge of how to introduce and how to dismiss his personages, sometimes a crucial situation eluded either by a magniloquent speech or by the necessary absence of an embarrassing witness; in the characters nothing divergent or eccentric; all inconvenient accessory parts and antecedents suppressed; nothing, however, too bare or too monotonous, but only two or three harmonising tints on a simple background; then, in the midst of all this, passion that we have not seen born, the flood of which comes swelling on, softly foaming, and bearing you away, as it were, upon the whitened current of a beauteous river: that is Racine’s drama“ (Sainte-Beuve, 1909 edition pp 301-302).

"Britannicus"


Time: 1st century AD. Place: Rome.

Text at http://www.archive.org/details/worksofcorneille00corn https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.186696 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94842

Agrippina worries over her waning influence over her son, Nero, the young emperor. She does not understand why he abducted Junie, the intended of Britannicus, his half-brother. "I would soon fear him, should he no more fear me," she admits. Nero startles a courtier, Narcissus, by declaring that he loves Junie, seeing in her a woman "beautiful without ornament, in the simple attire of a beauty torn away from sleep". In the first meeting with his captive, Nero astonishes her by declaring that he wishes to marry her, despite already being married to Octavia. Suspecting Junie's love of Britannicus, the emperor commands her to refuse him while he observes their meeting hidden behind a curtain. When Britannicus arrives, she behaves reservedly towards him, much to his distress, and Nero's, too, the first because of her apparent coldness, the second because he senses the latent fires of her love. After learning of Nero's intention to repudiate Octavia, Agrippina is incensed, and more worried than ever about her declining position. In their next meeting, as Junie explains her fake conduct to the reassured Britannicus, Nero suddenly emerges and angrily separates them, murmuring: "thus their fires are redoubled". When Agrippina at last is allowed in Nero's presence, she reminds him that he owes his position entirely to her, who, only for his sake, cast away Britannicus as ruler of the Roman empire, being the son of the previous emperor, Claudius. Assailed thus by his mother, Nero hypocritically promises to yield Junie to his rival, but when Burrhus, his tutor and a valiant soldier, enters rejoicing, he reveals his real sentiments. "I embrace my rival only to choke him," he confesses. Hearing Burrhus' pleadings for Britannicus and then Narcissus' pleadings against him, but seeking mostly freedom from his mother's influence, Nero is still uncertain about what to do. Just as Agrippina congratulates herself on her ability to restrain Nero, Burrhus runs in with the horrible news that Britannicus has been poisoned, falling "on his bed without warmth and without life". Horrified by this deed, she expects her son will live out a dire and troublesome reign. An attendant then enters to announce that Junie, renouncing the world as a vestal virgin, was restrained on her way from the world by Narcissus, at which time the people, angry at his interference, stabbed him with a "thousand blows" to the extent that "his blood besprinkled Junie". At this news, the emperor retires alone in his apartment in "fierce silence".

“Mithridates”


Time: 63 BC. Place: Nymphaeum, Pontus.

Text at https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.15304

A short while ago, Mithridates, king of the Bosphorus and Rome’s great opponent, fell in love with Monime and offered her to be his queen in place of his wife, mother of their son, Xiphares. To avenge Mithridates’ treachery and advance Xiphares’ fortunes, the rejected woman struck a deal with Pompey the Great to overthrow the Pontine region, but was defeated by her son, whose will refuses to yield to the Roman yoke. Meantime, Xiphares has learned of Mithridates’ death, a cause of grief but also of relief, because now the way lies open to declare his own love to Monime, although now the rival of his step-brother, Pharnaces. Aware of Pharnaces’ love but unaware of Xiphares’ and unwilling to accede to it, Monime begs Xiphares to protect her. He accepts, but to her surprise, immediately declares his love for her. “Defend me from Pharnaces’ furies,” she pleads. “To make me consent, my lord, to see you afterwards, you will not need an unjust power.” Pharnaces enters to offer his own help, but Monime refuses it, because her father was killed by the Romans and she will never marry their friend. Pharnaces guesses that Xiphares has declared himself and the two step-brothers are ready to contend when, to their astonishment, the news of Mithridates’ death is proven false. The king arrives to take his wife away, but quickly discovers that she is only ready to obey, not love, supposing that she loves Pharnaces instead. To prevent Pharnaces’ plans, he commands Xiphares to protect Monime while he prepares to war against the Romans one more time. Paradoxically left together, she assures Xiphares that she in no way approves of Pharnaces’ love but his alone, “a too perfect union by fate belied!” She begs him to disobey his father only by avoiding her. To his two sons, the king reveals a bold plan: attacking Rome at their very gate, accompanied by armies from nations along the way. To add Parthia in his armies, he commands Pharnaces to marry the daughter of their king. Instead, Pharnaces proposes to appease Rome, but is interrupted by his indignant step-brother. “Burn the Capitol and turn Rome into cinders,” he cries to his father. “But it is enough for you to open the way. Deliver the fire to younger hands and, while Asia occupies Pharnaces, with that other enterprise honor my boldness.” The king approves his son’s design, except that he will accompany him, while his other son refuses his role and is arrested. On his way to a tower, he reveals that Xiphares also loves Monime. Mithridates assures Xiphares that he does not believe it, but yet he doubts. To test his future wife, the king pretends to consider himself too old and hands her over to Xiphares. After a minimal delay, she accepts, too easily in the king’s view. By the king’s behavior in disposing of the troops, Xiphares recognizes that he knows Monime’s secret. He meets Monime to say that she should save herself by marrying his father. Instead, Monime tells the king that she is unable to. Before the king can exact the widest revenge on her and his two sons, he receives news that Pharnaces has succeeded in convincing the soldiery of the futility of Mithridates’ plan against Rome, that Xiphares has joined the rebels, and that a Roman army has invaded their territory. Mithridates orders that poison be delivered to Monime. Having heard a false rumor of her lover’s death, she gladly takes it up until the king’s confidante informs her of a counter-order. After bravely fighting against the rebels and the Romans, Mithridates, surrounded by a battalion, stabbed himself with his sword, too late to be saved by Xiphares who fought “a glorious way” to his side, chasing the enemies to their vessels. Thankful of his son’s deeds, he hands Monime over to him with his dying breath. “Ah, madam, let us unite our pains,” Xiphares proposes. “And throughout the universe, let us find avengers.”

"Phaedra"


Time: Antiquity. Place: Trezene, Peloponnesus, Greece.

Text at http://www.bartleby.com/26/3/ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phaedra_(Racine) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1977 https://archive.org/details/phaedraaclassic00racigoog https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.186696 https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.15304

Hippolytus, conscious of the presumed hate of Phaedra, his stepmother, and seeking to escape the amorous attentions of Aricia, disapproved of by his father, Theseus, intends to leave Troezen. On seeing Phaedra, he escapes immediately, while Phaedra, seeing him go, sinks under her woes, saying: "How these vain ornaments and veils press me down!" and seems to be slowly dying. Her confidente, Oenone, is unable to lift her spirits, not knowing the cause of such suffering. At last Phaedra reveals that not only does she not hate Hippolytus, but, though her stepson, she loves him all too well and culpably, for on seeing him a little after her marriage she "recognized Venus and her fires". News arrive that her husband, Theseus, has died, so that, according to Oenone, Phaedra now has all the more reason to live, since the husband's death "has cut the knots that made all the crime and horror of your fires", at which Phaedra agrees to follow her advice and live. Now that his father is presumed dead, the way is free for Hippolytus to divulge his love to Aricia, whose response is discretely favorable. As Hippolytus prepares to subdue Athens for her sake, Phaedra asks him to protect her young son. In Hippolytus she seems to see her husband once more. He is ashamed of such attentions. Despairing of her quest to make him love her, Phaedra takes away his sword and threatens to kill herself, but Hippolytus does nothing. Oenone takes the unhappy Phaedra away. Meanwhile, Athens has declared in favor of Phaedra's son as her rightful king. Despite her sufferings, Phaedra still hopes to obtain Hippolytus. She decides to yield the crown of Athens to Hippolytus. "I place under his power both son and mother," she says to Oenone. But, before speaking with Hippolytus, Oenone advises her to abandon her quest. "You must choke off the thought of such vain love," Oenone pleads, because Theseus is alive, at which Phaedra sinks into even deeper woes, expecting Hippolytus to reveal her adulterous love, or else perhaps herself will do so inadvertently. Oenone proposes that she accuse Hippolytus of incest. When Theseus enters, Phaedra suspiciously retires with her stepson's sword, saying she is "unworthy of pleasing or approaching" him. Too long inactive, Hippolytus proposes to leave and build a name for himself, worthy of his father's. Theseus is dismayed at his wife's behaviour and seeks her to find out who has played the traitor in his absence. Thinking to benefit her mistress, Oenone tells Theseus that Hippolytus is guilty of an incestuous attempt. The father curses his son by threatening to use Neptune, the sea-god, as his violent avenger. Guilt-stricken at Oenone's proceeding, Phaedra returns, but loses any scruple after learning from Theseus that Hippolytus loves Aricia. When Aricia encounters Hippolytus, she pleads that he return to his father to assure him of his innocence, but Hippolytus considers this useless, being particularly unwilling to reveal to his father Phaedra's guilt. Nevertheless, Hippolytus proposes to marry Aricia and leave for Mycaena, which she agrees to do. Theseus wants to learn more on his wife's conduct from Oenone, but is told that she has drowned herself and Phaedra is in a state of "mortal despair". As Theseus fears the worse, he learns of Hyppolytus' death: affrighted by a "formidable voice" and a "humid mountain" from which "vomited" "a furious monster" the horses of his chariot plunged forward out of control and tore the unfortunate passenger to pieces, where "dripping brambles bear the bloody remains of his hair". While Theseus grieves and prepares to accuse Phaedra, she admits her guilt under the effects of a deadly poison, whereby her husband concludes: "May so dark a deed expire with her memory."

"Athaliah"


Time: Antiquity. Place: Jerusalem.

Text at http://www.archive.org/details/greatplaysfrenc00mattgoog https://archive.org/stream/greatplaysfrench00corn#page/n23/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.186696 https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.15304 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21967

After murdering several little children of Athaliah's son in her quest to become sole reigning sovereign, unbeknown to her, one of them, Joash, is saved by Jehoshaba, his aunt, and Jehoiada, a high priest, who nurture him to become the future king. One of the main officers of the kings of Juda, Abner, expresses to Jehoiada great fear that Athaliah will seek further revenges. But Jehoiada at this time or at any other time never loses confidence in his God. Athaliah describes a dream which deeply perturbs her, in which her mother, Jezebel, appeared, "as on the day of her death pompously arrayed", warning her to tremble that "the cruel God of the Jews does not defeat you as well". Moreover, Athaliah sees in her dream a boy plunging a sword into her breast, the very child she just saw when she was awake, in a ceremony conducted by the high priest. She demands to see that boy. When interrogated, Athaliah is charmed by Joash's manner, to the extent of offering him to live in her palace, but he refuses that honor. She consults Baal's priest, Mattan, who recommends, to Abner's horror, that they kill the boy. Mattan first speaks to Jehoshaba, then to Jehoiada, who both refuse to hand the boy over to Athaliah. Instead, Jehoiada announces to the Levites and the priests Joash's true identity as king of the Jews, and they prepare to resist Athaliah's army. Unaware of what is prepared against her, Athaliah enters the temple where she is surrounded. "Unpitying God, you alone conducted this," she cries out in despair. She is murdered along with her priest.

=Molière=



Among the universally admired comedies of Molière are "Tartuffe" (1664), "Dom Juan" (Don Juan, 1665), "Le misanthrope" (The misanthropist, 1666), "Les Femmes savantes" (The learned women, 1672), and "Le malade imaginaire" (The imaginary invalid, 1673), all characterized by sparkling wit and profound psychology.

“The mere mention of 'Tartuffe' and its acknowledged position as one of the glories and masterpieces of universal dramatic literature is a sufficient reply, one would think, to all who urge that it is not lawful to treat religion upon the stage. The play and Molière's preface to it remain as a triumphant assertion for all time of the sovereignty of the drama in its own domain. And that domain is the whole of the nature, and heart, and passions, and conduct of men” (Jones, 1895 p 54). “In no previous play had Molière shown so many interesting characters. Orgon, Tartuffe, Elmire, Donne, and Mme Pernelle are admirably presented, while the young lovers and the outbreaking son produce interesting scenes and Cléante served to protect Molière against his critics. He gives an excellent picture of a seventeenth-century household and makes other references to manners. While the structure can be criticized for admitting characters not essential to the plot and for the king’s unprepared intervention, it is admirable in its animated exposition, careful preparation, and excellent use of suspense. The scenes are varied and there are highly comic situations, especially in Acts III and IV. Molière skillfully prevented the play from becoming a drama by such devices as the concealment of Damis in a closet or of Orgon under a table. He brought it closer to life than any of his previous plays” (Lancaster, 1942 p 107). "The major dramatic question, for most of that experience, is why does Orgon worship, flatter, and bribe Tartuffe so?...The obvious answer is that Orgon, an aging man with a domineering mother, grown children, and a younger (second) wife, is seeking a way to preserve control in his household. According to this interpretation, he is obsessed less with piety than with the desire to achieve a kind of absolute power and total autonomy in the realm of his home. The instrument of Orgon’s will or desire, of course, is Tartuffe, but the ludicrous irony here is that, insofar as Tartuffe is invested with superior authority and complete independence by Orgon, the latter sacrifices his own sovereignty" (Cardullo, 2016 pp 129-130). "Orgon has the simplicity to suppose that it is the highest wisdom to devote one’s attention to a spiritual director and to neglect the ordinary affairs of everyday life. He is so blinded by his infatuation for Tartuffe that he opposes the common sense of the other members of his family, the first domestic circle that Molière had used as a dramatic background...The brother-in-law is the spokesman or raisonneur of the piece. Like Clirysalde in The School for Wives, he combats the protagonist in exaggerated terms that border on cynicism; like Ariste in The School for Husbands, he expresses Molière’s ideal philosophy of the golden mean. He oscillates between being a freethinker and a true 'dévot'. In both characters he provides the intellectual opposition to Orgon’s foolish credulity. The maidservant represents the same point of view in a less consciously critical way but with more healthy vividness. Orgon’s wife, like the Queen in Hamlet, is of a sluggish disposition, which fits into her contradictory part as the recipient of Tartuffe’s attentions and the means of his eventual detection. Orgon’s son has a fiery nature, which drives Orgon to disinherit his family in favor of Tartuffe, and his daughter’s docility does nothing to stem the tide of her father’s blind obstinacy. Orgon’s weakness so far delivers him into Tartuffe’s hands that, even when his entire family is united against the intruder, he can do nothing to protect his property and his person, until royal intervention pronounces Tartuffe a notable traitor. Then the villain is routed and the dupe is cured of his folly in a play which is more substantially dramatic than a comedy of manners usually is and which is perhaps the most effective stage piece that Molière ever wrote" (Perry, 1939 pp 167-168). Molière "seizes upon two or three salient qualities in a character and then uses all his art to impress them indelibly upon our minds...Tartuffe... displays three qualities, and three only religious hypocrisy, lasciviousness, and the love of power; and there is not a word that he utters which is not impregnated with one or all of these" (Strachey, 1964 pp 59-60). "Orgon lives in the illusion that God has sent Tartuffe as a sign of his special mercy" (Fischer-Lichte, 2002). Orgon has suffered financial and social failures and, as a result, is all the more vulnerable to be fooled by a man who purports to help him succeed at least in the after-life. "In proportion as the vision of the reader is clearer as to the abominable hypocrisy of Tartuffe, so much the more comic becomes his dupe and foil Orgon. Each subtle victory of Tartuffe, as in the case of the donation, makes the gullibility of Orgon plainer; and the play gains tense interest not merely from the conflict of inclinations in Tartuffe, but from the almost reckless way in which the action swerves and plunges from farce to tragedy and back again. It is a breathless struggle of emotions” (Jourdain, 1912 p 129). The ending of ‘Tartuffe’ has been described as a "deus ex machina" despite being incited by Tartuffe himself. “The infatuated Orgon has made him a donation, a legal engagement disinheriting his son and assigning all his possessions to Tartuffe. In addition, he has entrusted him as his director of conscience with some politically compromising documents left in his keeping by a friend...Hypocrisy is not ridiculous...His hypocrisy would have paid off...if he had not gone one step too far and denounced Orgon to the police, so provoking the royal intervention...The principal object of laughter is the dupe...Obsessive religion leads to pernicious results” (Brereton, 1977 pp 118-120). “The disinheritance of Damis marks an important point of transition from the regular comic obstacle of the tyrannic father blocking the young people’s marriage toward a more wide-reaching disorder...The deed of gift and the coffer is entirely in line with the way in which the hypocrite rides the unpredictable waves of events in the play…it follows the escalating gravity by which Tartuffe’s power spreads outward from the single bourgeois family to society as a whole” (Grene, 1980 pp 157-159). “Tartuffe, who ought to be bound to Orgon by the strongest ties of gratitude, allows the son to be turned out of the house by his father, because the latter will not believe the accusations brought against the hypocrite- tries to seduce his benefactor's wife, to marry his daughter by a first marriage; and finally, after having obtained all his dupe's property, betrays him to the king as a criminal against the state. The conclusion of the play is that Tartuffe himself is led to prison, and that vice is for the nonce punished on the stage as it deserves to be” (Van Laun, 1883 vol 2 p 207). “Orgon...tyrannizes his family but is incapable of dominating his servant. Though quick-tempered, sentimental, and impractical, he emerges from his experience a chastened and loyal husband, father, and citizen. Dorine, a clever servant who has more common sense than her master, is quick to correct mistaken judgments, whether Orgon’s or Madame Pernelle’s. Elmire, always levelheaded and good-hearted, exposes Tartuffe without usurping her husband’s authority. At the end, she does not blame Orgon for their predicament, but dutifully faces their seemingly inevitable demise. Cléante is Molière’s ‘raisonneur’...comments upon the moral of each situation and points out the distinction between a truly religious person and a pretentious imposter” (Grace, 1973 p 22). "Molière is studiously careful not only to make it clear that Tartuffe himself is a villain in disguise, but to supply an antidote to any mischief which the cause of religion might suffer from his villany, by introducing the character of Cléante into the piece. Cléante is good in himself, and he is made the vehicle of some of the noblest sentiments with regard to true religion that are to be found in any dramatic writer...When Orgon discovers the villainy of Tartuffe and rages not only against him, but against all 'gens de bien' [fine people], Cléante interposes with some words of moderation, warns him against confounding, the truly good with the impostors, and ends by telling him that to turn against the zeal because he had been taken in by a false zealot would be the worse fault of the two...The little sketch of Madame Pernelle, Orgon's mother, is excellent, and is probably not overdrawn. Elmire, the wife, is a model of prudence, and one sees in her the family likeness to her brother Cléante. She is perhaps a trifle too prudent on one or two occasions, when she might as well have spoken out more plainly. Damis, the hot-headed young son, is a good character; and the daughter, Mariane, is a capital specimen of a missy young lady. The scene between her and her lover, Valère, when the question of her marrying Tartuffe is under consideration, is one of the most amusing that Molière ever wrote... Doreen...has all the ready wit and the keen sense of the ludicrous which distingish the servants in other plays; but she has, withal, something of a higher tone than most of them, and one looks upon her as almost the good angel of the piece, opposed to the fiendish Tartuffe" (Northcote, 1887 pp 395-400). “Tartuffe, is at once sinister and comic. But it is the comic side that is first presented to us...The contrast between his florid appearance and his profession of saintliness, between his gluttony and his ostentatious piety, Is of the essence of comedy...Even in the scene with Orgon, when Tartuffe's hypocrisy begins to be more apparent, the note of comedy, even of farce, is reintroduced by Tartuffe and Orgon simultaneously plumping down on their knees...Even in the second scene with Elmire, the comic element is sustained by the presence of Orgon under the table...It is not till the last verse of all that Tartuffe becomes terrible and then only for a brief moment, for he has no sooner called upon the officer to arrest Orgon than he is himself arrested, and his power for evil is crushed for ever. But if Tartuffe is a character of comedy, if on the whole he inspires ridicule rather than terror, we must not forget that beneath his mask he is a sinister scoundrel...Orgon abandons all human affections and is wrapped up in the contemplation of heaven. Yet this change has not improved his character. He is rude to his brother-in-Iaw, tyrannical his daughter, insoIent to his wife. He turns his son out of doors and finally disinherits his whole family in favour of Tartuffe...As for Elmire...it is evident that her marriage with a rich widower who had two children was dictated by reason rather than by love. But she is a thoroughly virtuous woman, she is a good wife and stepmother, and she is even respectful and conciliatory to her disagreeable mother-in-law. In character, she is gentle and easy-tempered, kind and compassionate, averse to family jars and disturbances. According to her mother-in-law, she is fond of spending money, especially on her clothes, and though she does not court admiration, she smiles at it indulgently when it comes her way. It is the only possible character that could have fitted in with the part she has to play. Had she been in love with her husband, Tartuffe would never have made his declaration. Had she not been of a placid temperament, she would never have proposed, much less have carried out, the stratagem which at last opens her husband’s eyes” (Tilley, 1921 pp 108-120). "While Orgon and his mother are besotted by the gross pretensions of the hypocrite, while the young people contend for the honest joy of life, the voice of philosophic wisdom is heard through the sagacious Cléante and that of frank good sense through the waiting-maid, Dorine" (Dowden, 1904 pp 202-203). "In a comic repetition of words we generally find two terms: a repressed feeling which goes off like a spring and an idea that delights in repressing the feeling anew. When Dorine is telling Orgon of his wife's illness, and the latter continually interrupts him with inquiries as to the health of Tartuffe, the question: 'And Tartuffe?' repeated every few moments affords us the distinct sensation of a spring being released. This spring Dorine delights in pushing back, each time she resumes her account of Elmire's illness" (Bergson, 1913 pp 73-74). “Instead of concentrating our attention on actions, comedy directs it rather to gestures. By gestures we here mean the attitudes, the movements and even the language by which a mental state expresses itself outwardly without any aim or profit, from no other cause than a kind of inner itching. Gesture, thus defined, is profoundly different from action. Action is intentional or, at any rate, conscious gesture slips out unawares, it is automatic. In action, the entire person is engaged; in gesture, an isolated part of the person is expressed, unknown to, or at least apart from, the whole of the personality. Lastly- and here is the essential point- action is in exact proportion to the feeling that inspires it: the one gradually passes into the other, so that we may allow our sympathy or our aversion to glide along the line running from feeling to action and become increasingly interested. About gesture, however, there is something explosive, which awakes our sensibility when on the point of being lulled to sleep and, by thus rousing us up, prevents our taking matters seriously. Thus, as soon as our attention is fixed on gesture and not on action, we are in the realm of comedy. Did we merely take his actions into account, Tartuffe would belong to drama: it is only when we take his gestures into consideration that we find him comic. You may remember how he comes on to the stage with the words: ‘Laurent, lock up my hairshirt and my scourge’. He knows Dorine is listening to him, but doubtless he would say the same if she were not there. He enters so thoroughly into the role of a hypocrite that he plays it almost sincerely” (Bergson, 1913 pp 143-144).

"Don Juan" “has many fine qualities: the portrayal of the protagonist, a seducer, slayer, and atheist, constantly in search of new sensations, the celebrated peasant scenes of the second act, the only one that seems quite finished; the presentation of bourgeois Dimanche, thrifty and obsequious, and the observations of humorous, cowardly, and orthodox Sganarelle, constantly contrasting with his master and commenting comically upon his views and deeds. Mobility, bourgeois, and peasants appear. The re are references to costume, meals, and the monastic system. The supernatural element, reduced to a minimum, adds a touch of spectacle and is given a comic flavor by the valet’s reaction to his master’s death” (Lancaster, 1942 p 108). “The subject...is religion, contemptuously attacked by Don Juan and defended by his servant with conspicuous feebleness...[Juan also criticizes medicine]. As the doctors are frauds when they claim to cure physical ills, so are the priests in the spiritual domain...[Molière] entrusted the defense of religion to a buffoon, whose heart may have been in the right place but whose brain was not...[Juan], a monster of wickedness, defiant to the last, going down to his punishment...in which few audiences could have believed in this primitive spectacular form” (Brereton, 1977 pp 126-130). The latter comment is doubtful, as the view that “the end is comical...because Juan has not engaged our sympathy (Mander, 1973 p 104), which runs counter to the Christian and humanitarian view of Juan's story serving as a terrible example. Likewise, Gassner (1954a) interpreted the ending of "Don Juan" as "comic", mistakenly taking Sganarelle's lack of feeling as a sign of how the reader should respond. Nevertheless, Gassner finely observed that "Don Juan’s cynicism was illuminated with brilliant flashes of wit. In comparison with his clever sallies, his servant's commonplace precepts sound like parodies on conventional morality" (p 296). “At the end of the first act, Don Juan, first by the report of his servant, then by his own words, and finally by his own deeds, is revealed to us as an odious figure, debauched, arrogant, treacherous, and cruel, and without a single quality to relieve the blackness of the picture...In the third act, he appears as a complete disbeliever in everything supernatural...[In scenes 3 and 4, Don Juan at last displays some nobility of character. He has at any rate the physical courage and the sentiment of honour where men are concerned, without which he would not have been a true picture of his class, and which contrast so forcibly with the incomparable cowardice of his conduct to Elvire...In the 5th scene, Don Juan and Sganarelle come upon the commander's tomb, and Don Juan's complete disbelief in the supernatural is symbolised by his refusal to credit the evidence of his senses, when the statue lowers its head in acceptation of the invitation to supper...[In act 4 scene 6], the hardness of his heart is even more clearly revealed in the Sixth Scene, when his deserted wife, Donna Elvire, reappears, and after declaring that her earthly passion for him, and her anger at his desertion have given place to a pure and disinterested tenderness, warns him that the wrath of Heaven is about to fall on his head, and implores him to repent before it is too late…[In act 5 scene 1, Juan] plays the hypocrite with his father and in [scene 2], he expounds the advantages of hypocrisy to Sganarelle...The cup of Don Juan's iniquity is now full, but he receives another supernatural warning in the shape of a spectre. Again he rejects it...Sganarelle, as the minister of his master's pleasures, is in a sort of confidential position, and it is perfectly natural that, disapproving as he does, of his conduct and opinions, he should venture on some timid remonstrances” (Tilley, 1921 pp 137-150). “Don Juan is the embodiment of primitive sexual instinct, selfish, lawless, and corrupting. Advancing civilization has found it needful to control this instinct; and the insatiable seducer has come under the ban of morals and of religion which certifies morality. And therefore Don Juan is moved in his turn to scout religion and to see only hypocrisy in any manifestation of morality. He has shifting caprices and perverted desires, but his ingrained selfishness keeps him cold to the sufferings of his victims, perhaps it even leads him to find a voluptuous satisfaction in their writhings. His amorous egotism, joying in the dexterity of his devices, leads him to be proud of his inconstancy and to hold it as an element of his superiority over the rest of men…The dramatist lent to his frightful yet fascinating hero the finer qualities which belong to the type; and his Don Juan is no mere butterfly wooer of maid, wife, and widow; he is gay and clever, quick-witted and sharp-tongued. Above all he is brave; this much at least must be counted to his credit, that he is devoid of fear. A type of essential energy could not be a coward; and Don Juan has a bravura bravery. He displays an unconquerable courage in the face of death and in the presence of damnation. He has a final impenitence in view of eternity which may lend to him for the moment a likeness to Milton's Satan…Sganarelle…is a cowardly servant endowed with penetrating shrewdness. He has the hard-headed simplicity of Sancho Panza; and it is he who acts as chorus, and serves as the mouthpiece of the author. His duty it is not only to enliven the action by his blunders and by his jests but also to comment on what takes place, and to suggest to the spectators the repugnance which they ought to feel for the externally charming hero, so handsome and so brave, so cruel and so callous. It is Sganarelle who brings out the moral again and again in the course of the action. Rarely has the morality of a play been confided to a character to whom we more willingly listen, for all that he is timorous, mendacious, and servile” (Matthews, 1910b pp 262-264). “In Don Juan, whose valet, Sganarelle, is the faithful critic of his master- the dramatist presented one whose cynical incredulity and scorn of all religion are united with the most complete moral licence; but hypocrisy is the fashion of the day, and Don Juan in sheer effrontery will invest himself for an hour in the robe of a penitent. Atheist and libertine as he is, there is a certain glamour of reckless courage about the figure of his hero, recreated by Molière from a favourite model of Spanish origin” (Dowden, 1904 p 203). "To Molière [Don Juan] stood not so much for the universal lover as he stood to Mozart and Byron as for the libertine of the Regency, for the brother or cousin of Esprit de Modene, of Cyrano de Bergerac, or, with less of intellect and conduct in Don Juan, of Saint-Evremond. But the type is perennial. The baleful super-man who preys on man and woman alike, and whose one redeeming quality, such as it is, is courage that creature belongs to all time" (Marzals, 1906 pp 74-75). Don Juan's "speeches are invariably in the spirit of his actions; he leaves us in no doubt as to the principles by which his conduct is governed; he lays bare the primary anatomy of his soul; he believes nothing, hopes nothing, fears nothing, and insolently proclaims his want of faith in the efficacy of prayer. In...meeting a mendicant who passes his life in prayer, but who is dying of starvation, he tosses him a louis d'or 'for the sake of humanity'. Moreover, he is superbly indifferent to all moral considerations; he is unmoved by the anguish of the too-credulous beings whose lives he has wrecked, and is perpetually on the watch for what he terms fresh conquests...Throughout the play Don Juan is never permitted to enlist our sympathies. His courage, his esprit, his elegant and chivalrous bearing these and other natural or acquired graces- are attributed to him simply to bring his character within the bounds of humanity, to account for the fascinations he exercises over women, and to deepen, by force of contrast, the moral blackness which they appear to relieve. In this portraiture, the most philosophical yet witnessed on the French stage, the genius of Molière probably found its loftiest and most artistic expression"(Bates, 1913 vol 7 French drama pp 190-192). “Elvire is Don Juan’s opposite. She is oriented towards permanence and exclusiveness, while he has given himself over to the moment and to change. Elvire lives in a state of continual discord between strictures (social or religious) and passion (physical or emotional). Juan rejects the one and atomizes the other by dividing his passion” (Mander, 1973 p 109). The scene with the poor man has been found disturbing. ”The special credit of the poor man with heaven which makes his prayers for the charitable a suitable exchange for alms is called in question by his miserable state of necessity. How, says Don Juan ironically, can a man who spends his life praying to heaven be anything but prosperous?...It can be seen...as a rallying cry of humanism against the tyrannies of religion...The whole comic mechanism of the play depends on our delight in Sganarelle’s repeated defeat in argument...Yet finally a direct representative of the heaven, which we have been inclined to see as an unreal menace set up by self-interested parties, does indeed wreak vengeance on the sinner...[to] leave us with an ideological vacuum” (Grene, 1980 pp 179-180). But the notion that hell is “an unreal menace” rounds counter to what the audience sees.

In "The misanthropist", “Molière represented an elegant and symbolic salon, where men and women talk of love in its various aspects, describe many social types, dabble in poetry, boast of their attainments, discuss their chances of winning law-suits, bring out the difficulties encountered by a man unwilling to accept society’s compromises. The play is rendered comic by the contrast between Alceste and the company that surrounds him, by the wit and poise of Célimène, by the hypocrisy of Arsiné, by the scene of the sonnet with Alceste’s recitation of a folk-song, by the infatuation of the young nobles with their own charms, by the humorous comment on society that runs throughout the play, and by a farcical situation introduced to keep the dialogue from seeming too serious. The material is excellently distributed. There is little plot, but enough to involve the characters in difficulties from which they are finally freed, so that the play practically ends where it begins” (Lancaster, 1942 p 109). "Alceste...was a character wholly new to the stage, and, unlike the central figure in other plays from the same pen, is intended to enjoy at least our respect, and even a certain measure of sympathy. He is no vulgar hater of mankind, no churlish or brutal cynic. High and noble in nature, he is alienated from the world by its want of heart, its insincerities, its more or less veiled falsehood, its hypocrisies of complaisance, its thousand petty foibles. He regards it as nothing less than a crime that men should exchange civilities simply as a matter of form, should breathe a syllable against those whom they call their friends, or should gloss over their opinion of execrable verses when the author asks for it. His practice is at least equal to his theory; contempt for the harmless hypocrisies of every-day life, however, does not prevent him from becoming the slave of a woman in whom they are fully represented, the sprightly, accomplished, heartless coquette Celimene. He is conscious of his folly even as he gives way to it the most, and it is upon the conflict in his case between head and heart, terminating in the predominance of the former, that the interest of the play chiefly depends" (Bates, 1913 vol 7 French drama pp 199-200). “For a comedian to see only a comedy part in Alceste is in the nature of a professional judgment; yet to deny this misanthrope a place in the sphere of Hamlet is to deny his author the attribute of profound philosophy and a niche beside Shakespeare” (Chatfield-Taylor, 1906 p 277). The play is "a touching protest against the insincerity of ordinary social relations, against trifling in love, against cynicism and conventional lying. The hero is a plain-spoken, just man, who looks upon the world with childlike good faith, and tells the truth unfalteringly. His disenchantment, his amazement at the falseness of men, and especially of women, and his true-hearted constancy, nevertheless, to what he believes is right, make him a figure as pathetic as he is noble" (Harper, 1901 pp 72-73). “Alceste's heart and his reason are seen in conflict, and this gives the material for a moving play. The conflict is increased through Alceste's natural disposition, which despises the ordinary traffic of politeness, while by his sincerity he shows up the hollowness of the society which surrounds him. No caricature of Molière's has been half so effective as this placing against the background of a social order that is highly nervous and artificial, the solitary man sincere and uncompromising, who wounds the sensibilities of others, but is bound to suffer in return both in his pride and in his happiness. As the play moves on, the more Alceste is injured by the conflicts he brings about, the more he desires love and idealizes it in Celimene; but in vain, for after his momentary defection and attention to Eliante, when he returns to Celimene, it is to find that her love is not equal to sharing his solitude in the desert that his nature has spread around him. The Misanthrope of Molière is not the man and woman hater, but the disillusioned idealist” (Jourdain, 1912 pp 135-136). “The first two acts pose clearly the question of who is the wrong...[Alceste being] in a temper with his friend, Philinte, a moderate and agreeable man with a strong sense of material realities...[In Act 2] he tackles Célimène on her complaisant reception of other admirers...[That relationship] provides the main substance of the plot...In all his other dealings, he is a man of high principles which he applies to petty examples: the sonnet, affected foppery in dress and manners, the lawsuit...[But] there is Eliante’s defence of him: ‘and the sincerity of which his soul is proud of has something noble and heroic in itself.’ And Philinte...stands by him throughout” (Brereton, 1977 pp 134-145). ”Alceste represents throughout a spirit of total seriousness and in a comedy those who cannot see a joke, especially against themselves, may be expected to be the comic butts...Célimène’s caricatures are quite as devastating, if not more so, than Alceste’s indignant rages. If we add Philinte with his phlegmatic but equally disillusioned view, we have three satirists who contribute to expose the vacuous court society of the time” (Grene, 1980 pp 193-195). "The misanthropist" "dispensed with vigorous or spectacular action, and appealed to the intelligence. It is, in fact, the coolest and most Olympian of his comedies. It is an exposé pure and simple; the action is left scrupulously unresolved at the end and the characters remain pretty much as they were at the beginning. The play simply revolves around Alceste, an upright man whose disgust with the follies, affectations, and corruption of his times, amounts to an obsession. The social world that buzzes around him is a collection of fops, bootlickers, intriguers, and philanderers. With them he finds it impossible to compromise even though his loyal friend Philinte counsels caution. He would rather lose his law case than bribe the court, and he would rather make enemies of the courtiers than flatter their stupidity. The weak point in his armor is his love for an incurably flirtatious woman, whom— like Molière himself— he loves against his better reason. But in spite of his infatuation with her, he cannot bring himself to accept the world of intrigue which is her natural habitat. When she refuses to leave it for a life of retirement with him, he renounces her too" (Gassner, 1954a p 297). Like Gassner, Frye (1922) agreed that the ending resolves nothing, deliberately so. "With the exception of the engagement of the two 'confidants', Philante and Eliante, which is again, as far as it goes, a thoroughly conventional expedient intended to give the piece a deceptive appearance of finality— with this exception Le Misanthrope ends very much as such an affair is likely to end in reality— in break-up. Celimene is exposed and Alceste makes his exit. There is a fine off-handedness about it; and that is all. Nothing in particular is illustrated in spite of the circumstance that the play proposes a very pretty problem. And it is on this account that the close is so teasing- that it does not answer the very question which the action has tacitly propounded; if anything, it raises others. Hence it is not surprising to find that the significance of the comedy and even its status as comedy have been a subject of discussion; for it seems hardly to substantiate an idea at all, but rather to moot certain of the dilemmas and paradoxes of social ethics" (p 295). "The peripeteia is of course the scene where the coquette Célimène is at length brought to book by the production of her hopelessly damaging letter in the presence of her various suitors. But no reader or spectator can tell whether this will or will not throw her finally into the arms of Alceste; in fact the conclusion is probably felt by most as a shock" (Norwood, 1921 p 197). “Alceste is nobly fanatical on behalf of sincerity and rectitude. How does his sincerity serve the world or serve himself? And he, too, has his dose of human folly, for is he not enamoured of a heartless coquette? Philinte is accommodating and accepts the world for what it is; and yet, we might ask, is there not a more settled misanthropy in such cynical acquiescence than there is in the intractable virtue of Alceste?” (Dowden, 1904 p 203). Yet Philinte “is a staunch friend, especially to Alceste. He is quite unaffected by his rudeness and ill-temper, he arranges his affair with Oronte without taking any credit to himself, and the play closes with his appeal to Éliante to join him in persuading their friend to abandon his rash, project. Nor in the scene of the portraits does he join the two marquis in presenting his neighbours as targets for Célimène's shafts. He even says a good word for Damis, praising him in terms which might apply to himself…But in the eyes of Alceste, he has a grave fault. He is insincere in his relations with mere acquaintances, especially in the matter of paying compliments...The prude Arsinoé gives emphasis to the wit and charm of Célimène, while, on the other, the sincere and sympathetic Éliante makes us more conscious of Célimène's faults” (Tilley, 1921 pp 180-183). DiBastita (1977) contrasted the main characters: Célimène's satire agrees with self-interest, Alceste's to society’s interest. Alceste rejects Arsinoe’s personal advances as well as her judgments on society. Alceste is subject to 'tragic inflation', Celimene to 'comic deflation'. His love for her reflects his desire to redeem her as well as society. This is opposite to Eliante’s vision of the lover: 'If she has any blemish, fault, or shame/He will redeem it by a pleasing name.' [Alceste] does this while confronting Celimene with her letters, a time when the satirist is in conflict with the lover. Unlike Alceste’s, Célimène’s targets of satire are behind people’s backs, so that when finally exposed, she becomes isolated (pp 268-269). "Célimène is one of the most interesting  women in Molière, a twenty-year-old widow  who loves this odd older man but who is  just really discovering her sexuality and  its power, and who finally opts for the exploration of that power instead of  solitariness with the man she still loves" (Kauffmann, 2021 p 63). "When Alceste stubbornly repeats the words, 'I don’t say that' on Oronte asking him if he thinks his poetry bad, the repetition is laughable, though evidently Oronte is not now playing with Alceste at the game we have just described. We must be careful, however, for, in reality, we have two men in Alceste: on the one hand, the misanthropist who has vowed henceforth to call a spade a spade, and on the other the gentleman who cannot unlearn, in a trice, the usual forms of politeness, or even, it may be, just the honest fellow who, when called upon to put his words into practice, shrinks from wounding another’s self-esteem or hurting his feelings. Accordingly, the real scene is not between Alceste and Oronte, it is between Alceste and himself. The one Alceste would fain blurt out the truth, and the other stops his mouth just as he is on the point of telling everything. Each 'I do not say that' reveals a growing effort to repress something that strives and struggles to get out. And so the tone in which the phrase is uttered gets more and more violent, Alceste becoming more and more angry, not with Oronte, as he thinks but with himself. The tension of the spring is continually being renewed and reinforced until it at last goes off with a bang" (Bergson, 1913 pp 75-76). “Though the language [of a song] is mean, the thoughts...from one end to the other are natural, and therefore cannot fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true and unprejudiced taste of nature...I might likewise refer my reader to Molière's thoughts on this subject, as he has expressed them in the character of the Misanthrope; but those only who are endowed with a true greatness of soul and genius can divest themselves of the little images of ridicule, and admire nature in her simplicity and nakedness. As for the little conceited wits of the age, who can only show their judgment by finding fault, they cannot be supposed to admire these productions which have nothing to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they do not know how to relish even those compositions that, with all the beauties of nature, have also the additional advantages of art” (Addison, 1711 The Spectator, no 85, June 7).

In "The learned women", “Philaminte, Armande and Belise are not really learned. They have simply picked up a few catch-words of" the learning and science of the day. Their taste in literature may be measured by their admiration for Trissotin's verses” (Tilley, 1921 pp 257-258). "No other of his comedies contains such a large number of minutely studied characters who express their personalities by interacting upon one another and voicing their various opinions in exquisitely modulated verses. There are ten important persons portrayed, five in favor of learning for women and five opposed to it, not one of whom is hurriedly sketched. Even the hero and heroine, often summarily dismissed by a writer of comedy, are given definite characterizing touches. Henriette is the most distinctly drawn of all Molière's young women. She is too sentimental to be willing to marry her lover when she thinks that her family are financially ruined, but she is human enough to enjoy triumphing over her unsuccessful rival. Clitandre plays the perfect gallant in disregarding his mistress’s loss of fortune, but he has a hot temper and attacks pedants, male and female, in forthright words. Into his mouth Molière puts an eloquent defense of the best elements in court life and a bitter denunciation of women who make a wanton display of their intellectual attainments...Bélise is an exaggerated picture of the unattractive old maid, so vain of her personal charms that she does not dare to look facts in the mirror. She lives in the world of her own imagination, which is more agreeable to her than the hard reality of her daily existence. Her delusions are as harmless as they are ridiculous. Such is not the case with Armande, Henriette’s elder but still young and attractive sister, with whom Clitandre had once been in love. She had liked his admiration, but she did not want to marry him, preferring courtship to marriage. Her dream world consists in an eternal round of florid wooing, a prospect which flatters her vanity without ruffling her equanimity or making heavy demands upon her sincere devotion to learning...Philaminte, the leader of the learned ladies, does not allow love, real or imaginary, to interfere with her enthusiastic pursuit of higher education. She has been married for a long time and has passed through that period of life when one’s emotions are likely to play havoc with one’s philosophy. In her case, the application to books comes into conflict with her duties as wife, mother, and housekeeper...Poor Chrysale is quite incapable of understanding advanced education, and he is not courageous enough to combat Philaminte’s masterful personality. His struggles to assert himself provide many of the most humorous scenes in the play. Again and again he attempts to insist upon having his way, but each time his wife proves to be too resolute to be dislodged from her position. He would probably have remained a nonentity all his life if a ruse of his brother’s had not demonstrated the mercenary designs of Trissotin and the unselfishness of Clitandre in their protestations of love for Henriette" (Perry, 1939 pp 189-191). “Henriette and Clitandre seem to uphold seriously the view of male superiority and female deference in marriage...[But] the mock humility of Henriette...when she claims that her mind is only capable of down-to-earth matters, such as marriage and a home, is used as a strategy against her sister...[Clitandre’s] objection is not to feminine learning but to a certain sort of ostentatious display” (Grene, 1980 p 132). "All the reasonable persons of the piece, the father and his brother, the lover and the daughter, nay, even the ungrammatical maid, are all proud of what they are not, have not, and know not, and even what they do not seek to be, to have, or to know" (Schlegel, 1846 p 315). “Novel reading is at the root of the girls’ over-romantic view of love...[The novel-inspired] romantic love ethic still persists in the mind of Bélise, [who] imagines that all men fall in love with her. When told by her skeptical brother that various men she names ignore or even abuse her, she claims that this is either through a delicate regard for her modesty or else due to frustrated passion...But important elements in the play are not burlesque. There is a real danger that Henriette, the natural and domestically inclined sister of Armande, who seeks fulfillment in life though ‘a husband, children, and housekeeping,’ will be forced to marry the unspeakable Trissotin. The plot interest of this is considerable. Her father, Chrysale,...can never stand up to his wife...He grumbles at length about the disorder his comfortable household is in because of the women’s addiction to books and learning: ‘It is not very honest, and for many reasons, that a woman studies and knows so many things,’ [he says], more than Henriette claimed and...[he is] not the voice of good sense...represented by his brother, Ariste” (Brereton, 1977 pp 104-107). “The most caustic satire of this play is found in the scene where Trissotin, the fortune-hunting poet, declaims a precious sonnet of his own to the three learned women...This Trissotin, whose name has been interpreted as the equivalent of ‘trois fois sot’ (three times silly) [and his] pedantic friend, Vadius, extol each other's productions to the rapturous sighs of their dupes and the manifest disgust of rational Henriette; then Vadius, unaware that the poem Trissotin vaunts is composed by him, attacks it unmercifully, meantime demanding attention for a ballad of his own. This is Trissotin's cue to abuse balladry, whereupon the two sciolists exhaust their respective vocabularies in violent recrimination until Vadius leaves angrily, with the avowed threat of annihilating Trissotin with his pen” (Chatfield-Taylor, 1906 pp 355-356). "The device most in use...for making a profession or a group] ludicrous is to confine it, so to say, within the four corners of its own particular jargon. Judge, doctor and soldier are made to apply the language of law, medicine and strategy to the everyday affairs of life, as though they had become incapable of talking like ordinary people. As a rule, this kind of the ludicrous is rather coarse. It becomes more refined, however...if it reveals some peculiarity of character in addition to a professional habit...We will instance...The Learned Women where the comic element evidently consists largely in the translation of ideas of a scientific nature into terms of feminine sensibility: 'Epicurus pleases me', 'I love vortices', etc...You have only to read the third act to find that Armande, Philaminte, and Belise almost invariably express themselves in this style" (Bergson, 1913 pp 179-180).

In "The imaginary invalid", Argan “is thrifty and at times shrewd, with some affection for his daughters, but his monomania has bred in him an absurd reverence for physicians, so that he insists on marrying his elder daughter to one of them and finally seeks to become one himself. His intriguing second wife and the physicians take advantage of his peculiarities, while the maid, Toinette, a younger and more violent Dorine, supports the lovers. Physicians are more amply treate than in earlier plays. The most memorable of them is the young pedant, Thomas Diafoirus, who seeks instruction from his father even when he is courting the heroine. Louison is the most admirable child that appeared on the seventeenth-century stage” (Lancaster, 1942 p 114). This “is a play about a man who, in seventeenth-century terms, including no doubt Molière's own terms, was not really sick but just thought he was. A modern critic might object that life is not so simple: that it is perfectly possible for a 'malade imaginaire' to be a 'malade véritable' [true invalid], and that what is wrong with Argan is clearly an unwillingness to see his children grow up, an infantile regression which his wife- his second wife, incidentally- shows that she understands completely by coddling him and murmuring such phrases as ‘pauvre petit fils’ [poor little son]. Such a critic would find the clue to Argan's whole behavior in his unguarded remark after the scene with the little girl Louison (the erotic nature of which the critic would also notice): ‘Il n'y a plus d'enfants’ [Children are no more]. Now whether this reading is right or wrong, it does not swerve from Molière's text, yet it tells us nothing about Molière himself. The play is generically a comedy; it must therefore end happily; Argan must therefore be brought to see some reason; his wife, whose dramatic function it is to keep him within his obsession, must therefore be ‘exposed’ as inimical to him. The plot is a ritual moving toward a scapegoat rejection followed by a marriage, and the theme is a dream-pattern of irrational desire in conflict with reality” (Frye, 1957 p 112). “Molière has realized in his presentation of Argan's character that the fear of death and constant search after health constitute a type of mental illness that is clearly marked out from physical disease. Toinette, who, as the soubrette, marks the common-sense view in the piece, expresses this. The key to the play is, however, not the fact of Argan's nervous weakness, but the self-deception which is at the root of it, and which brings with it the deceit of others. There is a whole network of deceit in the play. Angelique's engagement is brought about by a ruse, Argan's credulousness in the matter of his wife, Belise, can only be cured by Toinette's ingenious device. Louison is trained in ways of deceit. Under the cover of robust farce, Molière is again tilting at the evils of a society which does not fulfil its natural obligations of sincerity and kindness” (Jourdain, 1912 p 134). "The presence of Louison, the only child in Molière’s plays, adds a new note to the dramatist’s gamut. Her pretense of being dead to escape a beating and her terror of the omniscience of her father’s little finger are delightful excursions into the psychology of children. Although Louison has the best intentions in the world, the naive testimony she gives her father works against the course of true love. The heroine’s love affair meets more active opposition from another member of Argan’s household, his second wife, Béline. Béline is a designing hypocrite, a sort of female Tartuffe, whose one aim is to obtain possession of her husband’s fortune...Argan’s pretense that he is dead reveals Béline’s true motives, but the hypochondriac never entirely recovers from his delusion about the sanctity of doctors. He cannot give up his determination to have a medical son-in-law, and when he agrees to his daughter’s marriage with the man of her choice he stipulates that her future husband shall become a physician. His brother suggests that it would be better for Argan himself to be made a doctor, because then he would be able to cure his own diseases and not have to rely on any outside aid. This logical extension of Argan’s unreasonable position brings the comedy to a delightful upside-down conclusion and implies that in a world of self-imagined invalids, such as to a certain degree we all are, every man should be his own doctor" (Perry, 1939 pp 194-195). “Argan is not so deranged by his hypochondria that he will let his apothecary cheat him, and in everything that relates to money he can be shrewd enough...A man who was as really ill as he imagines himself to be would be too weak or too desperate to haggle over medical expenses...Béralde’s reasons for disbelieving in the medicine of his time are closer to those of a Christian scientist than to a 20th century doctor’s. He argues that a disease should be allowed to take its course without interference” (Grene, 1980 pp 76-79). “Argan is a world character, Toinette and Beline each a familiar type,- the one of feminine craft and impudence, the other of heartless policy; while Purgon and the Diafoiruses, father and son, shorn of their fur-trimmed gowns, stand revealed as academic snobs such as obtain wherever doctoral caps adorn dull heads. Again the word "farce" dies on one's lips, for although this masterful play is replete with exaggeration and drollery, no truer characters ever graced a comedy” (Chatfield-Taylor, 1906 pp 304-305). “Medicine was more authoritarian than empirical...It could be formalistic, even ritualistic, to the detriment of the patient’s health...Its orientation was rhetorical rather than clinical...Ignorance masked by pretentious jargon and unhelpful Latin is mocked from beginning to end in his comedies” (Hall, 1984 p 104). “To find the principal cause of Molière's ridicule of the medical profession we need not look beyond the condition of medicine in France in Molière's day, its pedantry, its conservatism, its lack of science; there is an excellent guide to the whole subject in Maurice Raynaud's Les Médecins au Temps de Molière. The sovereign remedies were bleeding and purging...The dominant characteristic in Argan is the fear of death. It is this ever-present sword of Damocles which drives him into the arms of the physicians. He is not, like some hypochondriacs, a sufferer from minor ailments; he is not only robust, but he has a magnificent constitution, or he could not have resisted all the purgings and bleedings to which he has been subjected. But he loves life, or rather he loves being alive, and he is afraid of death...There is considerable charm and some pathos in the character of Angelique. She loves her father in spite of his unpleasantness and tyranny, and she sincerely mourns his supposed death. Gentle and maidenly though she is, she is not wanting inspirit. To the importunities of Thomas Diafoirus, the commands of her father, and the malignant suggestions of her stepmother she opposes a resolute front, and her answers lack neither wit nor wisdom” (Tilley, 1921 pp 265-280). “Like all Molière’s lovers, Angélique and Cléante are presented as still unformed and innocent” (Mander, 1973 p 202). “The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. The master in the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politic, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed” (Bacon, 1605 1957 edition, p 135).

"Molière “does not hesitate to draw humorous scenes from the inexhaustible source of the farce whenever his more serious plots begin to border too closely on sombre effects. Thus [in Tartuffe] the scene in which Orgon tries to silence the garrulous maid, with its carefully worked out comic business, Is a bit of farce comedy. In the Misanthrope the episode in which the breathless servant hunts through his pockets for an important letter and discovers that he has left it at home is nothing more than a trick of commedia dell’arte. Yet such incidents, though extraneous in a strict sense, are justifiable, because Molière, while treating serious themes, had to keep the general impression humorous. Such scenes are not inartistic comic relief. They are incidents introduced to keep the audience in the desired comic mood” (Stuart, 1960 p 339). “In Molière this passionate concern, as everybody knows, took the direction of a hatred of hypocrisy, of all affectation. [‘You only lacked hypocrisy to achieve yourself at all points, and there is the peak of all abominations,’] Don Juan's servant says to him; and we are to believe that none of Juan's sins, rape, seduction, murder, cheating and lying, were so bad as hypocrisy. For Moliere the great sin in hypocrisy, then, is that it undermines social living by taking advantage of men's faith in one another, to deceive them for one's own ends. Hypocrisy discredits the mutual trust that makes society possible to live in. And in the individual it rots away the sincerity that is at the bottom of all character; and in the end makes it impossible for him to tell when he is sincere and when he is not; in other words may make him an unconscious hypocrite, a pious fraud, as well as a conscious deceiver. Affectation is only another form of hypocrisy. It may be a deliberate pose, an arrangement, a deception through pretending to have qualities which one has not. Or it may be an unconscious pose, derived from seeing one self in some special light or as possessing eminently some special quality or interest” (Young, 1922 p 244). “As a writer, [Molière] is distinguished by wisdom, wit, and grace, as a showman by improvisation, ingenuity, and vitality. His work exhibits a unique combination of intellect and spirit, of sober judgment and gaiety, of orderliness and vigor” (Gassner, 1968 p 51).

"Tartuffe"


Time: 1660s. Place: Paris.

Text at http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/4/1966/frameset.html http://www.bartleby.com/26/4/ https://archive.org/stream/greatplaysfrench00corn#page/n23/mode/2up http://azactorsacademy.com/uploads/plays/tartuffe.pdf https://pdfcoffee.com/moliere-misanthrope-tartuffe-and-other-plays-oxford-2008-pdf-free.html

Supported only by his mother, Orgon has invited in his house Tartuffe, a religious hypocrite who zealously lords over Orgon's family, in an uproar because of him. When the servant, Dorine, reports on his wife's poor health and Tartuffe's ravenous appetite, distracted Orgon exclaims four times: "Poor man!" "Whoever follows his lessons tastes profound peace and regards the entire world as excrement," according to Orgon. Orgon's brother-in-law, Cléante, disagrees, as no one is more odious than those "devout for place, whose sacrilegious and cheating grimaces abuse without impunity." When Cléante asks Orgon about his intentions regarding the proposed marriage between his daughter, Marianne, and Valère, he receives only vague answers. To Marianne, Orgon has a very disagreeable surprise: he wishes her to marry Tartuffe. Dorine interrupts this exchange, unable to believe that Marianne would be "business for the bigoted" and that Orgon would "choose a beggarly son-in-law". She is convinced that such a marriage will only promote adultery. After Orgon leaves to cool off, Dorine admits she is scandalized to hear that Marianne's objections to this proposal appear so weak. Orgon's daughter is timid, but pleads at last for help, to which Dorine responds: "No, you will, by my faith, be tartuffied." But before Marianne leaves the room in despair, Dorine brings her back. After hearing about the awful rumor, Valère also is offended when timidity prevents Marianne from declaring her love more openly. They quarrel. To make peace, the servant invites them to join hands. After some hesitation, they do. Her plan is to pretend acceptance of the proposal and stall for time. Meanwhile, Orgon's son, Damis, is also interested in this love-match, because he himself would like to marry Valère's sister. Against Dorine's advice, he hides inside a closet to discover Tartuffe's intentions. When looking at Dorine's half-naked breasts, Tartuffe takes out a handkerchief and hypocritically exclaims: "Cover that breast I am unable to look on." Orgon's wife, Elmire, also wishes to discover Tartuffe's intentions. In his zeal to serve her, he presses her fingers too hard, then his hand strays to the knee. Though Elmire wishes to speak of her daughter, he deviates the conversation towards her beauties. "Though devoutly religious, I am nonetheless a man," he assures her. Disgusted at this courtship of his stepmother, Damis steps out of hiding and, against her advice, tells his father of Tartuffe's "injurious avowal of a culpable flame". But Orgon knows his family is in league against his friend and dismisses such accusations. Exasperated by his son's insistence of Tartuffe's hypocrisies, he looks around for a stick to beat him with, but is restrained by Tartuffe. Instead, he disinherits his son in favor of his friend. Orgon hastens forward Marianne's marriage. On her knees she implores him that if he is opposed to her choice of a husband, he at least send her to a convent: "to spend the sad days heaven has given me," she has. But he refuses. Surprised at his incredulity of Damis' accusation, Elmire proposes that he himself be the witness of Tartuffe's hypocrisies by hiding under the table while she converses with him, where matters will go as far as he wishes. When Tartuffe enters, Elmire says she has secrets to reveal and that he should "look everywhere in fear to be surprised". She then pretends to disclose her attachment to him. Suspicious of this about-face, Tartuffe advances to obtain from her more than pleasant words. Elmire coughs as a warning to her husband, but he does not budge. To disarm her scruples, Tartuffe goes further. "It is the world's scandal that makes all the offense," he assures her, "and to sin secretly is no sin." In desperation, she sends him in the next room to make sure her husband is not near. With Tartuffe out of the room, Orgon abandons at last his hiding place, completely abashed. "Nothing so evil ever left hell," he cries. When Tartuffe returns, Orgon orders him out of his house. Yet Tartuffe is by no means confounded, threatening to "avenge heaven's injury". He says that Orgon should leave, because the house belongs to him now, and Orgon fears this to be true. He also fears the consequence of some lost papers left him by a friend. An officer of the court arrives to order Orgon out the house, now Tartuffe's property, and to take away the furniture. Valère informs them that Tartuffe went to the prince with the missing papers, Orgon considered guilty of keeping as a secret matters relating to criminal activities. Stunned by such treachery, Orgon murmurs cynically. "Man, I admit, is an evil animal," he declares. Valère proposes to help him escape from justice, but is intercepted by Tartuffe accompanied by an officer of the law. However, the officer surprises Tartuffe by arresting him instead, the prince having discovered Tartuffe's ploys just in time. Greatly relieved, Orgon at last offers to Valère Mariane's hand in marriage.

"Don Juan"


Time: 14th century. Place: Spain.

Text at http://www.archive.org/details/molireaffectedm00pagegoog

After luring Elvira away from a convent by marriage and then quickly abandoning her and after murdering a commander, father to yet another cheated girl, Don Juan disappears with his servant, Sganarelle. Though morally opposed to such doings, Sganarelle is reconciled to them by the wages he receives and its bodily comforts, convinced that, contrary to Aristotle's opinion, "tobacco is the best of all goods". Juan and Sganarelle sail away to capture the intended of a friend when, surprised by a storm, their boat is overturned, both saved only through the intervention of an energetic peasant. With little delay, Juan rewards the peasant by successfully seducing his intended. After escaping again from any sort of attachment, Juan learns that Elvira's brothers intend to kill him, so that master and servant must now walk about disguised. On the way, Juan saves a stranger from bandits, no less than one of Elvira's brothers, Carlos, who owes Juan his life. Recognizing Juan as the mocker they were looking for, the other brother challenges him to end their quarrel with swords, but Carlos, the recipient of Juan's courage, prevents him from any thought of vengeance for the moment, Juan promising both to render satisfaction at a later date. As they travel farther on, Juan and Sganarelle are surprised to discover the commander's tomb. As a jest, Juan invites the commander's statue to dinner. To his astonishment and Sganarelle's terror, the statue nods in agreement. After witnessing Juan's mocking of a timid creditor, his indifference at seeing Elvira's return as a nun to plead for his salvation, and his suppressed anger at being forced to listen patiently to his father's bitter remonstrances, Sganarelle is found even in a worst state of mind when the statue appears at dinner time. The servant, but not the master, attributes his arrival as a warning from heaven. The statue declines to eat, but instead invites Juan to dine with him. Juan accepts. Sganarelle pleads that he must refuse the honor because of a cold, but his master dismisses that argument. When next Juan meets his father, he promises to amend, a sight that much rejoices the old man as well as Sganarelle, but to the servant's dismay, all was pretense, Juan now choosing religious hypocrisy as the best cover of an evil disposition. When Carlos returns to request marriage on behalf of his sister, Juan refuses by pretending to lead a life of chastity, specifying that he hears "heaven's voice" in that vocation. Juan's pretense at religion is found out when a specter appears, transformed into the shape of time carrying his scythe. Juan dismisses the figure as he did every other warning. The commander appears, offering his hand. Juan resolutely takes it and suddenly feels burning by an "invisible fire". Thunder strikes, the earth opens, and Juan is plunged into the abyss where fires emanate. Sganarelle cries out in despair, not because of his master's fate but for lost money: "By his death, everyone is satisfied. Heaven offended, laws violated, girls seduced, families dishonored, parents outraged, wives evilly served, husbands pushed to the limit, all are satisfied, I only am unlucky. My wages, my wages, my wages!"

"The misanthrope"


Time: 1660s. Place: Paris.

Text at http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/4/1967/frameset.html https://pdfcoffee.com/moliere-misanthrope-tartuffe-and-other-plays-oxford-2008-pdf-free.html

Alceste accuses Philinte of flattering people he barely knows. "So great an anger against the times is to many a source of ridicule," his friend responds. Alceste admits he hates all humankind. "Some because they are evil and do harm,"he enumerates, "others for being to evil men complaisant." But then why does his heart incline towards Célimène, "whose coquette humor and scandal-mongering seems so in tune to the present mores?" Oronte arrives to greet Alceste with much ceremony, wishing to obtain from him an opinion on his sonnet. He rejoices at the opportunity of receiving an honest opinion, but, after obtaining it, he is extremely offended. At Célimène's house, Alceste frowns and fumes on listening to a long series of scandal-mongering between her and two marquis. She describes one acquaintance in this way: "He is a strange talker, who always discovers the art to say nothing with long speeches." Another is described as a man who "without any business is always busy." Of yet another: "of his cook he has obtained merit, and it is his table that receives visits," whereas his own person is "a bad meal." Bur for all this, notes Alceste, they socialize with those they satirize. These pleasantries are interrupted by representatives of Oronte, who wish to settle amiably the subject of their contention. When alone together, both marquis agree that whoever shows signs of having found favor with Célimène should let the other cede his place. Célimène next receives a visit from Arsinoé, a dishonest prude in love with Alceste. According to Célimène, "to save the honor of her feeble attractions, she attaches a crime to the power they do not have." After speaking ill of her for a considerable time, Célimène rushes to bid her friend welcome. Arsinoé arrives with the disagreeable (though secretly pleasant) task of announcing to her friend that "among people of singular virtue", Célimène's galantries have attracted widespread blame. In turn, Célimène is quick to point out to her friend what people say about her, that among "persons of very rare merit" "her prudery and fits of zeal were not cited as a very good model" and that her "bitter censures on things innocent and pure" "were blamed by common opinion," that she "orders nudities in paintings to be covered up, but has a love for the realities." To prevent more bitter terms, she leaves her in Alceste's company. Arsinoé is quick to point out his merits and, to promote them properly, offers to help obtain for him a position at the royal court, but he is certain not to possess the talents of the courtier. Failing that and despite her friendship towards Célimène, she finds her unworthy of his love. She invites him to her house, where she says: "I will let you see a loyal proof of the infidelities of heart of your belle," where also "something may be offered to console you." So tormented appears Alceste's relation with Célimène, in Philinte's opinion, that Eliante, Célimène's cousin, should be the object of his heart. She is open to the idea, though uncertain about the state of Alceste's mind. But yet Philinte specifies that he himself is willing to offer his hand to her in marriage should her heart be free. Devastated, Alceste rushes in, a letter in hand containing certain evidence of Célimène's betrayal: in her own handwriting a love-letter addressed to Oronte, the least likely rival. In a spirit of vengeance, he offers his heart to Eliante, but she demurs, knowing that "a guilty lover is soon innocent". Alceste confronts Célimène with the letter. "But if this letter is addressed to a woman," she asks, "in what way does it harm you?" When he does not believe her, she, exasperated, admits it was addressed to Oronte, but this only weakens his resolve. "Force yourself to appear faithful," he pleads, "and I will force myself to believe you." He is called away to learn he has unjustly lost a court-case. In addition, Oronte circulates untrue rumors about him in revenge. Furthermore, Oronte visits Célimène to insist on the need to banish Alceste forever from her sight and show at last her true heart, a course which Alceste also agrees with. Before she does, the two marquis and Arsinoé crowd in with more of her incriminating letters, which mock all of her suitors. Except Alceste, all suitors leave her contemptuously. Only Alceste forgives, provided she abandon society, but Célimène, so young and frivolous, is unwilling to "bury herself in his desert". Turning towards Eliante, Alceste specifies he feels unworthy of her love. Philinte steps forth, who, for the honor of marrying her, "would sacrifice both blood and life", resolving at the same time to prevent Alceste from retreating completely away from all humankind.

"The learned women"


Time: 1670s. Place: Paris.

Text at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Learned_Women https://pdfcoffee.com/moliere-misanthrope-tartuffe-and-other-plays-oxford-2008-pdf-free.html

Armande is disgusted at her sister's intention to marry. "Far from being to a man's law enslaved, sister, marry philosophy," she avers. Henriette answers she is content with grosser pleasures. "Do not suppress, in wishing to be followed, some little learned one wishing to enter the world," she declares. Though hating the thought of marriage, yet Armande appreciated Clitandre as a follower. When asked for his opinion, he entirely favors Henriette. To help win her, Clitandre begins to explain his case to her aunt, Bélise, who mistakes in thinking that his love is meant for her. Ariste informs his brother and Henriette's father, Chrysale, of Clitandre's love, but Bélise interrupts to say: "One cannot cheat more galantly," for her own person is no doubt his object, as is the case of several other men. Though none have dared to say one word of it, "mute interpreters have all done their office," she adds. Chrysale assures Ariste that he agrees with Henriette's choice and there is no need to consult his wife, Philaminte, but is dismayed on hearing that Martine, their servant, has been dismissed by her. He promises to support her, but when his wife appears, he immediately backs down. Martine is sacked for bad word usage, "wild and gross", bad grammar, "enough to kill a sensitive ear". "What a village soul!" exclaims Bélise. Chrysale mildly objects: "I live thanks to good soup, not good language," he swears. He gets hotter, though only when addressing his sister. Left with his wife alone, Chrysale changes the subject to Henriette's marriage prospects, whereby Philaminte declares she has already selected her son-in-law, the pretentious pedant, Trissotin. Chrysale is mute. When Ariste asks about Henriette, his brother answers that the affair "is not quite done". Despite being often interrupted by their exclamations, Bélise having to catch her breath, Trissotin is able to serve a small feast of poetry to the learned women. Thus Philamante: "One can no more," Bélise: "One swoons," Armande: "One dies in pleasure." Tired of mispent time common to their sex, as in judging skirts, each woman seeks for higher studies, Philamante at her telescope already sure to have clearly seen men walking there. Trissotin introduces his friend, Vadius, mutually showering each other with compliments, until the latter, not knowing the author, insults the former's sonnet. Now Trissotin grumbles before hearing Vadius' ballad, the authors then showering insults against each other. At last, Philaminte announces to Henriette that she has chosen for her a husband, which Bélise nobly yields. But to the two sisters, Chrysale reveals his will: Trissotin for Armande, Clitandre for Henriette. In front of her mother, Armande accuses Clitandre, because "a faithless heart is a monster in morality". Since according to him, one must have "knots of flesh", she is ready to submit, but for Clitandre too late. Trissotin mocks his rival for defending ignorance, Clitandre for defending pedantry. A letter from Vadius promising to prove Trissotin's pillage of Latin authors is without effect on Philaminte's mind, so that Henriette must make him desist, with no better result. Chrysale brings back Martine and strongly assures Henriette of his support, but would nevertheless like to be seconded. When Philaminte enters with the notary, he requests the name of her future spouse, but each parent points to a different one. "Two husbands!" the notary exclaims. Husband confronts wife. Martine is of the opinion that "the hen must not crow in front of the rooster". They are interrupted by Ariste's arrrival with two letters, the first containing news of Philaminte's loss of a great deal of money in a trial, which she stoically accepts, though hating the word "condemned", the second containing news of Chrysale's bankrupty. To this, Trissotin balks, but not Clitandre. Henriette refuses his sacrifice until Ariste reveals both news were false, invented by his desire to expose the false. At long last, Chrysale manly asserts himself. "Write the contract as I said," he commands the notary.

"The imaginary invalid"


Time: 1670s. Place: Paris, France.

Text at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Moli%C3%A8re

Despite his good health, Argan sits under the influence of two apothecaries who provide him with a multitude of drugs, including purgatives, so that when he calls for Angélique, his daughter, he must already head quickly towards the toilet. Angélique asks the opinion of their servant, Toinette, about the prospects of her love-interest. Toinette answers that such a matter depends on whether the man is serious about a marriage proposal. Angélique laughs delightedly when her father informs her that he has received a marriage proposal for her. But laughter turns to astonished grief when the man in question is not her lover, Cléante, but Thomas Diafoirus, a medical doctor in three days time and nephew of one of his doctors, Purgon. In Argan’s view, a doctor is the perfect profession for a son-in-law to have. But in Toinette’s view, a doctor is not the perfect profession for a husband to have, since his daughter is healthy. After threatening his daughter with a convent should she disobey, Argan chases Toinette away with a stick as his wife, Béline, enters to find out what has happened to her ‘little son’. He complains of Toinette and wants to dismiss her, but Toinette says she agrees with her master about the convent. He has felt so weak lately that he has summoned his notary, Bonnefoi, who informs him that the law on testaments disallows a man to him to hand over his money to his wife while his children are alive. However, all he need do is give the money to a friend of his wife so that he in turn may give it to her, to which he agrees. In addition, he will give her 20,000 francs in gold plus 10,000 francs owed to him. Béline pretends to be unable to accept. Soon after, Angélique requests Toinette’s help in securing her lover. She accepts. In haste to find Angélique, Cléante informs Toinette that he arrives at their house as if he were a friend of her music teacher to take his place. He meets Angélique in her father’s presence, but they are interrupted by Thomas and Diafoirus senior, a doctor, who boasts that his son holds conservative opinions, to prove which Thomas gives Angélique his thesis against the hypothesis of the circulation of the blood. To please the father, Thomas invites him to a dissection of a woman’s cadaver. Argan turns to Cléante about his daughter’s music lesson. Like a shepherd, Cléante sings about his love, which, to Argan’s disgust, is prettily answered by Angélique without book. And his rival? “Ah, I hate him worse than death,” Angélique sings, “and his presence is a cruel torture as it is yours.” Argan interrupts them and, to his further disgust, discovers that Cléante’s music paper contains no such lyrics. He encourages Thomas to take his daughter’s hand and promise her marriage, but Angélique begs for more time to know each other. Béline guesses the truth: her step-daughter wants to marry according to her own choice. Argan requests the two Diafoirus to examine him. They each take an arm, junior concluding that Argan is sickly, to the older man’s approval. Béline informs Argan that she spotted a young man in Angélique’s room, who disappeared as soon as he saw her. His younger daughter, Louison, was with them and can tell him more. To Argan’s questioning about whether she saw a man in her sister’s room, Louison answers nothing, so that he takes her by the hand while holding a handful of twigs with the other. In fear of being punished, she drops away and pretends to die. Argan is horrified, throws away the twigs, and rushes weeping towards her. “There, there, my papa,” she reassures him. “Do not weep so much; I’m not completely dead.” She admits that a young man entered her sister’s room and remained although she begged him to go. Argan feels sicker than ever, he confesses to his brother, Béralde, who has come to propose a possible husband for Angélique. This galvanizes him out of his apathy, vowing to send her in a convent within two days. Béralde insinuates that it would be in his wife’s financial interest to have her two step-daughters sent away in a convent. He remarks that Argan is healthy, only manipulated by doctors and apothecaries. One of his doctors, Purgon, shows up, irate that Béralde prevented his assistant from administering Argan a necessary clyster. “Here is great boldness,” Purgon exclaims, “a strange rebellion on the part of a patient against his doctor!” He tears up the donation he intended for his nephew in regard to his marriage to Angélique. To replace Purgon, Toinette disguises herself as a doctor, who pretends to be 90 years old, thanks to his art, and who declares that all his troubles derive from a problem with the lungs and that it would be best for him to cut off his right arm and eye to prevent the left from being deprived of nutriment. Pretending to confound Béralde’s opinion against Béline, Toinette proposes that Argan pretend he is dead and observe her reaction. “Heaven be thanked! Here I am delivered from a great burden!” Béline exclaims after looking at his apparently dead body. Toinette thought that they should cry. Why should they? “A man inconvenient to everyone, filthy, disgusting, always with a purgation or drug in his belly, voiding his noise, coughing, spitting, witless, boring, in a bad humor, tiring people without cease and grumbling day and night at servants and valets!” As she prepares to grab the most money she can, Argan moves to prevent her. She leaves in shame. Toinette proposes that they repeat the procedure with Angélique. In contrast to Béline, Angélique grieves for her apparently dead father. Likewise, Cléante’s grief seems genuine, so that Argan agrees at last to their marriage, provided Cléante becomes a doctor. Although Cléante willingly accepts, Béralde proposes instead that Argan himself study medicine.

=Jean Rotrou=



Though of a lesser note than the other three dramatists, Jean Rotrou (1609-1650) stands out as a dramatist of interest in the neo-classic period, especially for "Le véritable Saint Genest" (The true Saint Genesius, 1645). Like Corneille's "Polyeuctus", "The true Saint Genesius" describes the life of a Christian martyr in ancient Rome, this time in the form of an actor who reveals the nature of his religion while acting in his play.

“Marcelle characterizes her colleague’s conversion as ‘senseless ardor’, ‘ridiculous error’… She also belittles his new God as ‘an impostor, a cheat, and a crucified one’ and his fellow Christians as ‘a lot of ignorant ones’...Thus, questions concerning the validity of the conversion and of Christianity itself persist into Rotrou’s final scenes, undermining the apotheosis” (Simerka, 2005 p 66), or else contrasting it for a better effect. "Rotrou never lets his spectator forget the contrasting irony of the conversion within the diversion. The peripheral scenes of each act of Le Veritable Saint Genest revert to the on-stage spectators or else to the actors of the martyrdom in their off-stage roles; the inner play begins in Act II only after a long series of scenes backstage where we see Genest try to persuade the actress Marcelle, who is to be his on-stage wife, to put real feeling into her role; and still in II just before Genest goes onstage he has a premonition about the true meaning of the words he is to speak only in derision; at the end of III the spectators hasten backstage to congratulate him on the force of his performance; Act III begins with the spectators discussing the performance and ends with Genest breaking out of character in order to complain about a noisy crowd which disturbs the performance; Act IV begins with the announcement that the disturbance has been quelled and it is in this fourth act of the overall play that the inner play comes to an end with the actor's conversion. Finally, there is a long fifth act in which the spotlight falls exclusively on the members of the court. the entire play is a constant shifting from one plane of the action to the other, from one scale of values to the other" (Nelson, 1957 pp 452-453).

“Rotrou’s drama begins with the problematization of seeming and being, illusion and reality, and the potential effectiveness of the supposedly illusionary on reality. This liminal confusion is not the purpose of the play, however. In fact, throughout the play the real persona (Genest) is clearly distinguished from his role (Adrian) so that the text always maintains a clear distinction between what is play and what is reality, and the point where the two are joined is precisely defined” (Pawlita, 2019 p 284).

"By carefully constructing a contrast between the world of Christian faith and the world without faith, Rotrou attempts to create for his audience the sense of an encounter with the divine and a realization of the urgency of a commitment to God...Rotrou accumulates images that contrast true and false reality, true and false power, true and false order, true and false death, and finally true and false life" (Wood, 2015 pp 293-295). "The pagans and the Christians in Le Véritable Saint Genest and in the interior play Le Martyre d'Adrian, believe that the heavens intervene in the real world...Rotrou highlights the action of [the heavens] by emphasizing its striking and spectacular interaction with the world (Ruoff 217-18). [It] becomes another actor in the play" (Ruoff, 1993 pp 26-27).

“Genest’s theatrical performance of Adrien’s martyrdom is interrupted by a rowdy group in the wings. They are the young men attracted by the actresses in Genest’s troupe. [The disorder] is dealt with by the emperor Diocletian who takes pains to articulate his precise role in such matters: ‘One must impose order and to do it ourselves’. In so doing, Diocletian suggests a parallel between the disorder caused by sexuality and that caused by Christianity. The emperor imposes order in the religious domain by torturing and executing Genest who converted while acting the role of the Christian martyr Adrian. Thus, Rotrou allows Christianity and sexuality to occupy, albeit briefly, the same functional space as agents of disorder, a disquieting note in a complex play” (Ekstein, 2009 p 304).

“Violence surrounds Adrian, both as the man whose job it had been to torture Christians on behalf of the emperor and as the new Christian who will himself be martyred. While Adrian doesn’t think of his own martyrdom as a performance per se, he does see it as a role, and he doesn’t want to share star billing with his Christian wife Natalie,...forbidding her to follow him. Natalie sees martyrdom as a theatrical role as well, which is why she misconstrues Adrian’s later appearance at her door. He has come to say farewell but she imagines that he has recanted, because he isn’t playing the role of martyr properly: he arrives alone at her door unfettered, whereas the martyr is supposed to be in shackles and accompanied by soldiers. Adrian’s wife Natalie is an experienced actress, having played the role of the non-Christian, presumably for years. We get to see her acting skills in the scene following her revelation to her newly converted husband: she effortlessly convinces Flavie that despite her efforts she had been unable to convince her husband to recant. Obviously she made no such effort. Her relationship to violence is indirect, but nonetheless disturbing. She has been married against her will to a man whose job it is to torture her coreligionists. She obviously suffered a kind of emotional violence because of the impossible position she occupied...Violence and performance lay at the heart of Saint Genest. They are woven together through the opposing institutions of imperial power and religion. The former holds sway over both theatrical productions and torture, and the latter over martyrdom. Both institutions use performance to further their aims” (Ekstein, 2011 pp 554-555).

“The art Genest abjures is the very instrument of his salvation. What is more, the redemptive message driven home by the ironic reversal sealed with the actor’s dramatic conversion owes its entire impact to that art…Rotrou’s Saint Genest accordingly does double duty. A martyr drama that stages an inspiring act of self-sacrificial faith, it also mounts an apology for the art of the stage…Genest is not the only victim; his troupe suffers, too, deprived of its poet, star actor, and impresario…The sorry fate of Genest’s company prompts second thoughts about the nobility of his sacrifice. The one true God has been vindicated, his honor avenged by the willingness of yet another believer to die in his name. But is it right that his companions should lose their livelihood, condemned to penury by a choice that was not theirs? Doubts about just what Rotrou has in mind emerge in other ways, too, particularly since Genest’s martyrdom has no impact on the beliefs of anyone else in the play…The demand for a play presumably intended to mock Christian martyrs defeats itself, for it leads Genest to discover his true identity as God’s instrument. But this pious surface irony envelops a more subversive one. For the play itself becomes an object lesson in why the period taboo on the recent past was a good idea. With Genest’s conversion to Christianity, the imperial court is thrown into complete disorder and, as we have seen, the cost will be borne not only by the tyrant and his martyr but above all by the emperor’s loyal subjects, the actors whom Genest’s refusal to recant drives penniless out of doors. Is the title character then supposed to be a theatrical apologist who vindicates his art by putting it to spectacular (if also oddly bootless) homiletic use, or does he also trigger reflection on the intransigence exhibited by both sides in the events preceding Genest’s martyrdom?” (Braider, 2018 pp 34-46).

“In viewing Adrian’s story, we learn that his conversion is largely due to his own persecution of Christians...through his profession, so did Genest through his...The moment of conversion for Genest comes when Adrian asks to be baptized...of a different nature than Adrian’s, being the direct result of divine intervention...Like Adrian, Genest goes to his death denouncing the falseness of the real world...Genest goes too far in the identification with the character that an actor needs for an effective portrayal. The result is that he destroys the play in which he is acting” (Morello, 1980 pp 128-132). The "duality between the aesthetic imitative function and the aesthetic act of becoming is the basis for the powerful conversion scenes of the fourth act when Genest, playing the role fo Adrian, suddenly mixes the 'real' name of the actors with his own utterance of Christian statements...We can...fully view the world as conforming to [Genest'] assertions of transformation through grace and understand his reduction of the pagan world to error and analogy. But we can also see the coherence of the pagan view, and note that their actions are provided with ample justification on the level of human endeavor that of Genest the actor. We also know that, as Genest himself says, the voice may simply be a practical joke played by another actor" (Lyons, 1994 pp 607-612).

"The true Saint Genesius"


Time: 4th century. Place: Nicodemia.

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An acting troupe play in front of Diocletian the emperor during the marriage celebrations of his daughter, Valeria, with Maximinus. The main character in the presented play is Adrian, a martyr once put to death as a Christian by Maximinus. Genesius plays Adrian, thrown in prison at the start of the play for his Christian beliefs. Adrian receives a visit by the people's tribune, Flavius, who tries to dissuade him from his voluntarily imposed arrest but is unable to. Next Maximinus curses him as an ingrate and threatens him. "Fear to behold, and soon, my neglected favor and the insult to the gods cruelly avenged," he declares, but Adrian remains firm. Next, Natalia, Adrian's wife, visits him, revealing that she, too, is a Christian. When asked why she never said so before, seeing her husband order the death of so many Christians, she answers his rage seemed then uncontrollable. Flavius returns to free him temporarily from his chains, since he continues all the firmer in his purpose. Seeing her husband freed from his bonds, Natalia rages against his seeming abandonment of the Christian faith, but he reassures her. "God always in my heart conserves his victory," he affirms. Genesius, the actor, proves it in real life as did Adrian in the play by suddenly stepping out of his role and disclosing his Christian faith in front of Diocletian, who cries out: "O execrable blasphemy! O impious sacrilege, which we will answer if his blood does not expiate it." In view of dimmer prospects without Genesius and in fear of retributive punishments, one of the members of the acting troupe, Marcella, pleads with Genesius to desist. "O ridiculous error, to boast the power of a god who to his own gives death as recompense!" she exclaims. "You will see whether those gods of metal and stone will be powerful in heaven, as they seem on earth," he retorts. To her despair and that of the other actors, an officer reports Genesius' death. "By your command, my lord," he announces to the emperor, "that glorious actor, of the most famous heroes renowned imitator, of the Roman theatre the splendor and the glory, but so bad an actor in his own history, as complete as ever in his impiety and by my efforts solicited in vain, has by the gods' wrath against his perfidy with a bloody act ended the tragedy."

=Thomas Corneille=



A fifth dramatist of note is Thomas Corneille (1625-1709), Pierre's brother. Although his comedies are generally weak, his tragedies show a high degree of stoutness and refinement, especially "Timocrate" (Timocrates, 1656) and "Ariane" (Ariadne, 1674).

In "Timocrates", Collins (1966) pointed out that although Timocrates could have saved bloodshed by revealing himself sooner, “it is very questionable that the queen of Argos would have accepted Timocrates as her son-in-law...She is a vindictive sovereign, compelled to avenge the death of her...husband...Her bitter animosity against Crete was at least as strong as her esteem for Cleomenes...At the time of his capture, Nicander had had ample opportunity to recognize the Cretan warrior...And yet when Cleomenes appears in the following scene, Nicander gives no indication of recognizing him as Timocrates. With the advantage of hindsight, one can conclude that Nicander had been won over, had already decided to betray Argos...Even after the queen’s assent to Cleomenes’ claims, Nicander remains skeptical” (pp 61-63). At this point, the queen’s passivity regarding the fate of her own country matches Nicander's.

“Thomas Corneille did succeed in writing 'Ariane' that is sober, pure, and powerful...No gimmicks here, no scenes or events, no gratuitous characters: only naked passion” (Demorest, 1984 p 90). "Ariadne" “is the most effective of its author’s plays. The heroine’s role created by la Champmesle, is admirable in its pathos and in the fact that Ariadne’s efforts to meet the difficulties of her situation only make things worse. Her appealing character and the simplicity of the plot have made some critics suppose that the tragedy was written in imitation of Racine” (Lancaster, 1942 p 82). The play is "composed after the model of Berenice, is a tragedy of which the catastrophe may, properly speaking, be said to consist in a swoon, the situation of the resigned and enamoured Ariadne, who, after all her sacrifices, sees herself abandoned by Theseus and betrayed by her own sister, is expressed with great truth of feeling" (Schlegel, 1846 p 291). Corneille “succeeded in giving Ariane a poetic expression vibrant with the emotional rhythm, density and movement of instinctive passion” (Moravcevich, 1974 p 475). While the other characters appear static, “Ariadne evolves dynamically through a series of attitudes each of which claims renewed attention...[In Act 2], so profound is her faith in Theseus that she parries the first blows of deception with confident equanimity. [In Act 3], she can only brood over her loss. [In Act 4], her plan for revenge gives Ariadne an ostensible serenity finally turning to despair. In Act 5...[Phaedra’s role in the tragedy may be defended in that she] makes every effort to persuade Theseus to return to Ariadne...Pirithous...far from being an accomplice of Theseus...disapproves of his friend’s decision to abandon Ariadne...There is every good reason for Theseus to love Ariadne, but the only reason that matters is absent” (Goodkin, 1998 pp 146-155). “When [Ariadne] says she will forget his treason if he repents, this passion embarrasses Theseus: "Such beauteous fire oppresses me" (III,iv). These words indicate the Athenian's shame at being unable to return Ariadne's love, but also suggest the exasperation caused by the constraints she has placed on him...The constant evocation of his debts to Ariadne serves to make devoir, both the verb and the noun, odious...In rejecting obligation, the Athenian prince turns to the other individual stifled by Ariadne's demands for gratitude: Phaedra. Ariadne usurps the role of a parent. She claims to have cherished her younger sister since childhood. After learning of Theseus’ infidelity, Ariadne implores her sister to help her, but without trusting Phaedra to see her own obligations. Although the elder sister recognizes that Phaedra loves her, she stresses that she has a right to this love...Ariadne does not admit the possibility of love being freely given and received. She treats her sister as her creature and goes so far as to propose a marriage for her with Pirithous. Believing that obligation gives her power, Ariadne fails to understand that such power may oppress the victims of her generosity...The flaws in Ariadne's version of generosity grow all the more apparent since this tragedy does contain one truly generous prince. Œnarus refuses to make his love for the princess dependent on any reciprocal exchange…In agreeing to marry Œnarus, Ariadne hopes to trick Theeseus into revealing the name of his new mistress, whom she intends to murder. She shows herself to be fluent in the discourse of self-domination, but here she deliberately uses it to deceive” (Harrison, 1997 pp 185-189). "Thomas Corneille is generally recognized as a playwright whose strength lies in his ability to create a fast moving plot which sustains interest through curiosity...While the emotions which the dramatist tried to arouse were principally curiosity and surprise rather than pity and fear, there occasional pathetic characters whose expression of emotion is calculated to move there are occasional pathetic characters [such as Ariadne] whose expression of emotion is calculated to move the spectator" (Marovcevich, 1974 p 465). To counter a critic’s harsh opinion on Phaedra’s behavior as being “vicious”, Lockert (1958) pointed out that on their first encounter, “she tells Theseus that they must renounce each other, for though she loves him she cannot forget Ariadne’s tremendous claims on him. Later, she proves too weak for her suggested self-sacrifice and accepts his plan of trying to persuade her sister to be reconciled to his inconstancy and marry King Oenarus; but when the forsaken woman begs her to plead with Theseus for her, she does this, against her own interests, so eloquently that Pirithous is convinced that her lack of success makes plain the uselessness of any further efforts to persuade the recreant lover to fulfill his obligations- yet still she wishes to try once more. Only when she learns of Ariadne’s determination to discover the object of Theseus’ affections and kill her does she consent, in terrified dismay, to fly with him” (p 17).

"Timocrates"
Time: Antiquity. Place: Argos, Greece.

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The queen of Argos receives an ultimatum from Timocrates, king of Crete: either war or the hand of her daughter, Eriphile, in marriage. She consults two neighbor-princes and Nicander, a subjected prince, all three rivals for Eriphile's hand, all proposing to reject the marriage offer. The queen next asks the opinion of Cleomenes, a worthy soldier and subject to Nicander. Although he favors peace, the queen rejects the marriage offer, with all the more reason as she swore to avenge her husband's death at the hands of Timocrates' father, the former king of Crete. She declares her daughter will marry whoever defeats Timocrates. Cleomenes reveals to Nicander that his opinion was motivated mostly by personal interests, for he, too, loves Eriphile, but, being devoid of royal blood, feels himself unworthy of her. "I love that she escape my flame this day more as the victim of the state than that of love," he despairingly says. Learning Cleomenes' opinion, Eriphile is dejected, for he is the true object of her desires. When Nicander arrives for encouraging his aim, she does so only partially, admitting only that she prefers him to the two other princes. When Cleomenes comes, she accuses him of being a traitor. "To love more, I wished to hate myself, and was traitor to myself in fear of being yours," he counters. Despite appearances, he intends to kill Timocrates. "Combat, win," she recommends. "And especially do not expose my faith to refuse elsewhere what is only meant for you." During the bloody conflict, Timocrates succeeds in killing the two princes and capturing Nicander. Sure of his success and wishing to impress the queen, he releases Nicander without conditions. But the queen hates him all the more as the son of her husband's murderer. Against all hope, Cleomenes defeats Timocrates. In accordance with her oath, the queen offers him Eriphile's hand in marriage. But, unexpectedly, Cleomenes is found to be an impostor. Hearing this rumor, Eriphile challenges Cleomenes to deny he knew of it. His silence first convinces her that he did. He then counters that it is indeed Timocrates who gave up all claims to her to him. After Eriphile angrily leaves him, the queen requests Cleomenes to explain the matter of his imposture. To her astonishment, he reveals himself as Timocrates. She is now subject to two conflicting vows offered to the gods: on one hand to give her daughter away in marriage to Timocrates' victor, on the other to avenge her dead husband. "O duty, O vengeance, O bold oath!" she exclaims, "Did I engage heaven to serve my anger only to behold to my anxious heart hated Timocrates in loved Cleomenes?". She condones both, first to let him marry her daughter, then to have him killed. But Eriphile is desperate to avoid becoming "the minister of hate", though stopping short of promising to marry him. Nicander answers that he may yet serve her well. As the queen invites the couple to enter the temple to marry, the Cretes invade the city, forcing her to yield the crown, their entry being helped by Nicander, who recognizes in the noble Timocrates his rightful king. Thanks to Nicander, Timocrates becomes the king of Argos and Crete with Eriphile as his queen.

"Ariadne"


Time: Antiquity. Place: Naxos, Greece.

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After helping Theseus kill the minotaur in Crete, Ariadne and he escaped from the wrath of King Minos, her father, to the isle of Naxos, welcomed and protected by King Oenarus. She expects marrying Theseus, but the man has for three months delayed the ceremony because of his growing love for her sister, Phaedra, as she loves him, but they are unwilling to declare their love until the king declares his own to Ariadne. Unaware of her sister's love, Ariadne proposes that Phaedra marry Theseus' friend, Pirithous. Theseus is unable to say whether he loves Ariadne, leaving Pirithous to suggest that she should heed the king's love, at which suggestion she grows very anxious of having a rival. She asks Phaedra to intercede with Theseus on her behalf, but her sister only half-heartedly attempts to do so. "Love like a tyrant disposes of his heart, and fate, stronger than gratitude, despite what he owes you, leads him to be false," Phaedra confesses. Pirithous once more presses the subject of King Oenarus' love if only to protect Ariadne from King Minos, but she cannot. "Without the one I love, alas, of what use is life?" Ariadne asks. She calls for Theseus and asks him what crime has she committed and specifies that for the service she has rendered only the heart can pay back. "I would like to give it to you," he says. "But this heart, in spite of me, lives under another empire...I hate my injustice but can do no more." On the subject of the king's love, she retorts: "Let everything perish if to you I must cease to be dear...Of the entire universe I wanted only you." To discover her rival's name, Ariadne promises the king to marry his choice after Theseus weds her rival. She also asks for Phaedra's help. "Should I sufficiently consent to everything rage offers as most bloody to avenge my outrage?" she asks. Armed with this knowledge, Theseus and Phaedra flee the court towards Athens. Ariadne discovers her rival's name too late. She asks Oenarus' help to pursue them, but then, in despair, falls on Pirithous' sword.

=Antoine de la Fosse=

Antoine de la Fosse (1653-1708) reached tragic heights with "Manlius Capitolinus" (1698), based on the life of Marcus Manlius Capitolinus (? BC-384 BC).

“If any piece deserves to be distinguished above the rest, it is the ‘Manlius Capitolinus’ of La Fosse, a work suggestive rather of Corneille than of Racine, which was founded on the Venice Preserved of Otway (Dowden, 194 p 259).

“Few plays of the seventeenth century had come so near those of Corneille and Racine in depth of interest, artistic development, and beauty of detail...His contemporaries supposed that he had merely borrowed the story from the conspiracy against Venice, as told by the Abbé de St Rial. In point of fact he was considerably indebted to an English tragedy suggested by the same book...Otway's Venice Preserved (1683)...’Manlius’ was similar to that effusion of genius in its vividly conceived characters, its dramatic force, and its arrangement of scenes” (Hawkins, 1884 vol 2 p 275).

"Manlius Capitolinus"


Time: Antiquity. Place: Rome, Italy.

Text at ? After saving the Roman Republic from the Gauls at the site of the Capitol building, Manlius Capitolinus has been slighted by the senate and even put in prison. His friend, Albinus, reminds Manlius that although the people love him, no one can depend on them. "At least they forced the senate to free me," Manlius retorts. He receives the visit of the consul, Valerius, who complains of Manlius harboring his daughter, Valeria, with her husband, Servilius, married against a father’s wish. Seeking to mitigate Valerius' hate, Servilius asks Valerius how he can serve him. "Choose this very day either Manlius without my daughter or my daughter without Manlius," Valerius retorts. Servilius refuses. Seeing that her father remains inflexible, Valeria proposes to leave Rome at once, to which he agrees, but changes his mind when Manlius informs him that the senate has taken all his possessions. Instead, Servilius agrees to join Manlius’ plot to overturn the state. Manlius consults his fellow-conspirator, Rutilius, who casts doubts about whether Servilius can be trusted in view of his family link to Valerius. Servilius proposes to cast Valeria as a gage of his faith in Manlius' house so that, if ever he should betray their confidence, they could kill both her and him. When Servilius keeps away from her, Valeria guesses the existence of a plot forming against the senate. Aghast, Servilius begs his wife to keep her suspicions to herself. "You are in these precincts the hostage of my faith," he states, "as mine is to yours." Manlius informs Servilius that the deed is soon to be accomplished. To test Servilius further, Rutilius describes the carnage likely to ensue and detects his pale countenance. But Manlius ascribes Rutilius’s suspicions to excessive anxiety. While Servilius wavers, Valeria informs the senate of a likely plot against them after ensuring a pardon to the conspirators. Servilius is all the more aghast as Manlius arrives to show him a letter from Rutilius stating that they are betrayed. "Strike," Servilius requests. Manlius is horrified how Servilius has so easily revealed his supposed treachery by Rutilius’ ploy to test him but refuses to kill him. He is promptly arrested on the orders of Valerius, who informs Servilius that he at least is pardoned, his possessions reinstated, and his friendship assures, since his marriage saved the Roman state. Servilius considers suicide, only prevented by thoughts of saving Manlius from public execution. He also considers murdering Valeria, only prevented by requesting her to beg her father’s help in saving Manlius. Pressed by Servilius rounding up 400 citizens in Manlius' favor, the senate decides to leave Manlius' fate in the hands of the two tribunes of the people. Manlius tells Servilius that there is only one way he can be helped. Servilius understands him. When Manlius is led away by an escort of guards, he is allowed to take an unarmed Servilius apart on the hill where he bested the Gauls and to tell him that he is certain to be condemned. Servilius leads him to the precipice and plunges him along with his own self to death. After hearing about these news, Valeria stabs herself to death.