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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2021
There are, as Bailly has said, no conversions in Molière. To the end, Arnolphe remains a bigot, Harpagon a miser, Jourdain a parvenu, Argan a hypochondriac. Thus Molière remains true to a rule of comedy far more important than the conventions of time, place, and unity considered the hallmarks of classical dramaturgy: the rule of the unity of character. For, conversion would take the spectator into affective and moral regions where the satiric purpose—laughter—might be compromised. A repentant Arnolphe, a disabused Jourdain, an enlightened Argan might satisfy our sense of the pathetic or the propitious, but only at the expense of our pleasure. In fact, to make us feel sorry for such characters at the end of the play or to make them share our superior view of their previous conduct would come dangerously close to identifying us with them in that previous conduct as well. In leaving these characters “unreconstructed” Molière earns our gratitude as well as our applause.
1 “Mais,—et c'est un trait important du génie de Molière,—s'il récompense le jeunesse ou Ja vertu, et si, par là même, il châtie le vice,—jamais il ne nous le montre corrigé. Il n'y a pas de conversions dans son théâtre, et c'est peutêtre la qu'il est le plus vrai.” Auguste Bailly, L'Ecole classique française (Paris, n.d.), p. 53.
2 The Freedom of French Classicism (Princeton, 1950), pp. 149-160.
3 La Vie de Molière (Paris, 1929), p. 136. Fernandez defines the concept in slightly different terms, pp. 74-77.
4 Play Within a Play: The Dramatist's Conception of His Art: Shakespeare to Anouilh (New Haven, 1958), p. 69.
5 Nelson, p. 74.
6 The Liberal Imagination (New York, 1950), p. 207.
7 Molière, Oeuvres, ed. Eugène Despois et Paul Mesnard (Paris, 1873-1900), 13 v. Le Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur appears in vol. IV, Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre and Le Misanthrope in vol. V.
8 See Michaut, G., Les Luttes de Molière (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar. For a review of theories on the first version see Henry Carrington Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century: Part Three—The Period of Molière (Baltimore, 1936), II, 620-623.
9 Molière, Oeuvres, IV, 276.
10 History: Part Three, II, 622.
11 It is impossible within this short article to reply in detail to Cairncross's intricate argument. However, it might be noted that the “donation” is not so arbitrarily inserted as the critic would have us believe. If the reference to it in IV.i does indeed smack of “patchwork,” that in III.vii, to borrow Cairncross's criterion, flows quite naturally out of the situation. That the versification in III.vii “may not be of the strongest” is not only debatable—it is irrelevant. As for Cairncross's reconstruction of the end of the play, there is as much reason to believe that Tartuffe is triumphant at the end of IV as that he is not: what greater way to underscore his villainy than to show him casting Orgon out of his own house even after he has been “unmasked” in the act of seducing Elmire. Again, it is true that Michaut weakens his argument by insisting on Elmire's penchant for Tartuffe, but Cairncross himself follows Michaut in seeing greed rather than lechery as the hypocrite's principal motive. Finally, Cairncross fails to grasp the esthetic significance of the festival atmosphere in which the first Le Tartuffe was played. Whether triumphant at the end of III as Michaut conjectured or at the end of IV, as I conjecture modifying Cairncross, the sting is taken out of Tartuffe's triumph by the king's laughter. See John Cairncross, New Light on Molière: Tartuffe; Elomire hypocondre (Paris, 1956).
12 See Paul Bénichou, , Les Morales du grand siècle (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar. Bènichou does not discuss the content of the first version, but his general theses support Michaut's conception.
13 There is even a tradition that Louis XIV persuaded Molière to write Le Tartuffe, but this has been generally discounted by Molière scholars. See Baumal, Francis, Tartuffe et ses avatars (Paris, 1925), p. 200Google Scholar.
14 In the essay “De l'essence du rire,” Oeuvres complètes, ed. Y. G. Le Dantec (Paris, 1951), pp. 712-714.
15 “The Humanity of Molière's Dom Juan,” PMLA, LXVIII (1953), 509-534. This is the most penetrating study of the play to date. However, I cannot agree with Doolittle that the work has a “perfect consistency and cohesion of characters, ideas, events and style” (p. 510).
16 Doolittle, p. 531.
17 As a “stone” Pierrot is only a diminutive, a mere pebble, and so no real challenge to Dom Juan. Also, see Doolittle, p. 532-533.
18 Henri Poulaille, , Corneille sous le marque de Molière, (Paris, 1957).Google Scholar
19 Fernandez, Ramon, La Vie de Molière, (Paris, 1929), p. 87.Google Scholar
20 Rigal, Eugene, Molière (Paris, 1908)Google Scholar, I, 130 ff.
21 Lancaster, , History: Part Three, II, 539.Google Scholar
22 Fernandez, p. 89.
23 Fernandez, pp. 88-89.
24 Léon Emery, Molière: du metier à la pensée (Lyon, n.d.), p. 32.
25 Moore, W. G., Molière, A New Criticism (Oxford, 1949), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar
26 Fernandez, p. 88.
27 Baumal, Francis, Molière: auteur prècieux (Paris, n.d.), pp. 116–117Google Scholar. To the extent that Elvire's pity is part of her générosité this virtue is more Cartesian than Cornelian (see the Passions de l'dme, Articles 185 and 187 in Descartes, Oeuvres, ed. André Bridoux, Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1952). Pity is not an aspect of Cornelian générosité, as can be seen most dramatically in Corneille's “hero-villains” (Cléopâtre of Rodogune, for example). Yet, Elvire's Cornelian pride of station and her sense of the image she gives to the world are far from the impersonal and self-effacing character of the Cartesian généreux.
28 Les Morales, p. 167.
29 For further discussion of the “God-Guarantor” in these two thinkers see my “Descartes and Pascal: A Study of Likenesses,” PMLA, LXIX (1954), 542- 565.
30 Les Luttes, p. 165.
31 The Plays of Oscar Wilde (New York: The Modern Library, n.d.)
33 Les Luttes, p. 182.
33 “Dom Juan Reconsidered,” MLR, LII (1957), 514.
34 “ … the bitterest remark of all is the crushing of Dom Juan by the most monstrous insult to humanity in the theater of Molière: that orthodox, inhuman mockery of a man (a vainglorious and defeated man), a mere image wrought according to rule and fashion in cold, rigid, hard, dead stone.” Doolittle, p. 532.
35 Quoted by the editor in Molière, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Maurice Rat (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1956), I, 893, n.l.
30 A concept I borrow from Lucien Goldmann. Jean Racine: dramaturge (Paris, 1956), p. 13.
37 A. Furetière, Dictionnaire universel (edition of 1690), quoted by Cayrou, Gaston, Le français classique (Paris, 1948), p. 260Google Scholar.
38 “On the Psychology of Comedy,” Tulane Drama Review, II, No. 3 (May 1958), 60.
39 Jekels, p. 61. The comments on Bergson appear on pp. 58-59.
40 la Molière et le Misanthrope (Paris, 1951), p. 47-48.
41 Jasinski finds L'Amour médecin (September 1665) “assez grave et amère sous la fantaisie savoureuse” (Molière et le Misanthrope, p. 48). To the extent that this is true, this comédie-ballet may be said to show the influence of the satiric mode of Le Misanthrope which Molière continues to work on “entre temps” (Jasinski, p. 48).