Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 29 - Molière at the Hôtel Guénégaud and the Comédie-Française: The Early Years

  • from Part VI - Afterlives
  • Edited by Jan Clarke, University of Durham
  • Book:
    Molière in Context
    Published online:
    10 November 2022
    Print publication:
    24 November 2022, pp 275-284

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the fate of Molière’s plays in the years immediately following the author’s death as first the Hôtel Guénégaud company (1673–80) and then the Comédie-Française (from 1680) battled to capitalise on their Molière inheritance and make the most of plays with which the public was becoming increasingly tired. Strategies employed included ‘resting’ plays and then reviving them, digging deep into the Molière stockpile to produce plays that had not been seen for some time, and increasing the number of double bills given so as to enhance the diversity of their programmes. By these and other means, the Guénégaud company and the Comédie-Française actually succeeded in growing the number of Molière plays in the repertoire and in so doing began the process of turning Molière into the cornerstone of the French national canon. An analysis of statistical information from the company account books enables us to see how successful these strategies were at the box office, at the same time as revealing which of Molière’s plays were most popular in this period.