"A trilogy about hypocrisy." Analysis of Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe".
An example of “high comedy” can be “Tartuffe”. The struggle for the production of Tartuffe went on from 1664 to 1669; counting on resolving the comedy, Moliere remade it three times, but was unable to soften his opponents. The opponents of “Tartuffe” were powerful people - members of the Society of the Holy Sacrament, a kind of secular branch of the Jesuit Order, which served as the secret moral police, instilled church morality and the spirit of asceticism, hypocritically proclaiming that it was fighting heretics, enemies of the church and the monarchy. The denunciations of secret agents of this society caused a lot of evil, so that contemporaries called it a “conspiracy of saints.” But the Jesuits during this period reigned supreme in the religious life of France, from among them the confessors of the royal family were appointed, and the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, personally patronized the Society of the Blessed Sacrament. Therefore, although the king liked the play, first presented at a court festival in 1664, Louis for the time being could not go against the clergy, who convinced him that the play attacked not bigotry, but religiosity in general. Only when the king temporarily fell out with the Jesuits and a period of relative tolerance began in his religious policy, “Tartuffe” was finally staged in its current, third edition. This comedy was the hardest for Moliere and brought him the greatest success in his lifetime.
"Tartuffe" in one of the dialects of southern France means "swindler", "deceiver". Thus, already by the title of the play, Moliere defines the character of the main character, who walks in secular dress and represents a very recognizable portrait of a member of the “cabal of saints.” Tartuffe, pretending to be a righteous man, enters the house of the wealthy bourgeois Orgon and completely subjugates the owner, who transfers his property to Tartuffe. Tartuffe's nature is obvious to all Orgon's household - the hypocrite only manages to deceive the owner and his mother, Madame Pernelle. Orgon breaks with everyone who dares to tell him the truth about Tartuffe, and even expels his son from the house. To prove his devotion to Tartuffe, he decides to become related to him and give him his daughter Mariana as his wife. To prevent this marriage, Mariana's stepmother, Orgon's second wife, Elmira, whom Tartuffe has been quietly courting for a long time, undertakes to expose him to her husband, and in a farcical scene, when Orgon is hiding under the table, Elmira provokes Tartuffe to make immodest proposals, forcing him to ascertain his shamelessness. and betrayal. But by expelling him from the house, Orgon jeopardizes his own well-being - Tartuffe claims rights to his property, a bailiff comes to Orgon with an eviction order, moreover, Tartuffe blackmails Orgon with someone else’s secret inadvertently entrusted to him, and only the intervention of a wise king gives the order to arrest the famous rogue, who has a whole list of “unscrupulous acts” to his name, saves Orgon’s house from collapse and provides the comedy with a happy ending.
Characters in classic comedy usually express one characteristic trait. Moliere's Tartuffe embodies the universal human vice of hypocrisy, hiding behind religious hypocrisy, and in this sense, his character is clearly indicated from the very beginning, does not develop throughout the action, but only reveals itself more deeply with each scene in which Tartuffe participates. Topical features in the image associated with exposing the activities of the Society of the Holy Sacrament have long faded into the background, but they are important to note from the point of view of the poetics of classicism. Many other characters in the comedy are also one-line: the usual roles of young lovers are represented by the images of Mariana and her fiancé Valera, the lively maid is represented by the image of Dorina; the reasoner, that is, the character who “pronounces” for the viewer the moral lesson of what is happening, is Elmira’s brother, Cleanthes.
However, in every play by Moliere there is a role that he played himself, and the character of this character is always the most vital, dramatic, and most ambiguous in the play. In Tartuffe, Moliere played Orgon.
Orgone - in practical terms, an adult, successful in business, the father of a family - at the same time embodies the spiritual lack of self-sufficiency, as a rule, characteristic of children. This is a personality type that needs a leader. No matter who this leader turns out to be, people like Orgon are imbued with boundless gratitude to him and trust their idol more than those closest to them. Orgon lacks his own inner content, which he tries to compensate for with faith in the goodness and infallibility of Tartuffe. Orgone is spiritually dependent, he does not know himself, is easily suggestible and becomes a victim of self-blinding. Without gullible orgones there are no deceiving Tartuffes. In Orgone, Moliere creates a special type of comic character, which is characterized by the truth of his personal feelings despite their objective falsity, and his torment is perceived by the viewer as an expression of moral retribution, the triumph of a positive principle. In this regard, A. S. Pushkin’s remark is very true: “ High comedy is not based solely on laughter, but on the development of characters - and, quite often, it comes close to tragedy."
In form, "Tartuffe" strictly adheres to the classicist rule of three unities: the action takes one day and takes place entirely in Orgon's house, the only deviation from the unity of action is the line of love misunderstandings between Valere and Mariana. The comedy is written, as always with Moliere, in simple, clear and natural language.
The clergy never forgave Moliere for Tartuffe
Tartuffe. Hypocrite. And here it doesn’t matter to Moliere whether he is a nobleman or a bourgeois. We do not know the environment in which he acquired this trait. His passion itself is significant - hypocrisy, a psychological trait, and not a social background. This is a crystal clear image, taken from the historical environment. Moliere strives to create pure abstract stage space and time. This desire for abstraction is characteristic of classicists, and this desire is reflected even more strongly in the characters. Moliere, typifying the image, cannot help but give the hero individual traits. Individual feature Tartuffe is that he is a bearer of hypocrisy. He is arrogant and stubborn. It's like a person. And as a type, he embodies what Moliere wants to express in him - condensed hypocrisy. One way to depict such an image is the hero’s surroundings. It emerges from this environment. Tartuffe is generally outlined by those around him. Orgon admires him. Dorina talks about him. This environment of Tartuffe is artificial. With the hand of Moliere, all obstacles were removed from the path of the protagonist. The reverse side of Tartuffe’s boundless arrogance and hypocrisy is Orgon’s boundless gullibility, his devotion to Tartuffe. Moliere's second way of achieving abstraction is hyperbole. He introduces this hyperbole with strokes. It is necessary that the exaggerated trait be truthful, real, fixed in gestures, intonation, phraseology, and behavior that are truly characteristic of a person obsessed with this passion. Tartuffe is absolute in his imaginary piety: he covers Dorina's neckline with a scarf. Classical principle Moliere brings characteristics to the last degree of completeness, surpassing in this sense the most orthodox classicists. In general, the principles of classicism are very important to him. For example, what is important to him is his attraction to symmetry, to the balance of all parts. Moliere always has two heroes who complement each other using the method of contrast. In "Tartuffe" it is the arrogant Tartuffe and the gullible Orgon
Composition
TARTuffe (French Tartuffe) - the hero of Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe, or the Deceiver" (first ed. under the title "Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite" - 1664, second ed. under the title "The Deceiver" - 1667, third ed. under the present title . - 1669). The image goes back to the folklore-mythological type of trickster. The connection between the figure of T. and the farcical masks of hypocritical saints, with the corresponding characters in the works of Boccaccio, Aretino, Flaminio Scala, as well as Sorel and Scarron, is also obvious. Contemporaries found in T. a “portrait” resemblance to persons well-known at court. T. is, without exaggeration, the most famous creation of Moliere. It was thanks to this image that the comedian gained fame as a great creator of literary types, the features of which are presented at the highest stage of their development, in extreme expression, outlining at the same time highest point and the boundaries of human phenomena. Unlike Don Juan and the Misanthrope (Alceste), as if dissolved in the form of images of numerous rebels-seducers and reasoners-accusers, the image of T. is something indecomposable, integrity, testifying to aphoristic “deformation” artistic type. It is noteworthy that, having quickly turned into a transcultural image, T. lost almost nothing in its content, as happened with the majority literary images: with Don Quixote, Hamlet, Carmen, Lolita, etc. However, Moliere’s bigot did not find prospects for further movement in literature. The hero of F. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants,” Foma Fomich Opiski,” traditionally revered as the “Russian Tartuffe,” rather belongs to the same type of trickster as the French saint, rather than being a local transformation of Moliere’s image. The above testifies to the unique density of the character’s artistic structure, which resists dismemberment and partial exploitation in culture: T. can be “quoted” in its entirety, but cannot be “continued,” like Don Juan, for example, or “developed,” like Carmen. T.'s name was included in European languages as a synonym for hypocrisy and hypocrisy. However, Western literature knew the florid saints long before Moliere. All kinds of “fra” and “padre” amazed readers and spectators with their shamelessness, greed, and sometimes charming mischief. At the same time, many heroes in cassocks and rosaries, in tonsures and hoods looked extremely expressive on the pages (on stages) and could also give rise to the consolidation of their images as iconic in the culture. The phenomenon of T.’s figure consists, apparently, not only in its aphoristic emblematicity. In the image of his bigoted “empty saint,” Moliere managed to formulate a problem that was significant both for his era (which emerged with particular clarity precisely in his time) and for other (earlier and later) eras, marked by the metamorphoses of Christian religiosity. T. appears for the first time in the second scene of the third act. Until this time, the household of Orgon, who has sheltered a beggar saint, is aloud amazed at the blindness of the owner and the aggressive acting of the guest, who has become the “all-powerful tyrant” of the entire family. In Orgon’s enthusiastic monologue, a portrait of a righteous man “beloved forever” appears, whose prayers in church were filled with such fervor that “he attracted everyone’s attention.” The image of the praying T., who so enchanted his future victim, is worthy of separate consideration, for it serves not only to characterize the hero’s hypocrisy. Raising hands to heaven, ecstatic prostration, tears and “kissing the ashes” in front of shrines are completely accepted forms of Baroque religious behavior. The “Great Century” is unusually partial to representation, not only in the sphere of art or everyday life. The Church also shows a penchant for ostentation (exhibition); even the institution of preaching turns out to be infected with the desire for active visualization of the spiritual impulse and, consequently, for the accentuation of the physical, which already seems to be a sufficient expression of the spiritual. T. appears for the first time with a whip and hair shirt in his hands, demonstrating these attributes of mortification to the maid mockingly observing him. And then the flesh, the visible material shell of “immortal beauty”, “given by heaven,” remains the theme of T. The voluptuous false righteous is attracted by both the earthly charm of Orgon’s wife Elmira and the maid’s radiant health body. He is not averse to eating deliciously and receiving “as a gift” all the property of the owner conquered by his sermons. However, the motive of “flesh” in comedy serves not only to expose the liar. In the thematic system of the work, this motif is associated with the theme of guise, appearance, illusoryness - that is, with one of the most popular themes of Baroque culture. But the image of fat flesh, dressed in spirit - the image of T. - also has a religious and philosophical background. The “programmatic” characterization of T. becomes the scene of Elvira’s seduction, where the inflamed saint explains his feelings in the style of mystical eroticism, not new to Christian religiosity, but especially popular in the era of Moliere. T.’s vocabulary, the tone of his monologue, the sensual enthusiasm with which he glorifies the “creator of all living things” and his “incarnate likeness” - beautiful woman , serve not to expose the hypocrite who “made bigotry a source of profit,” but to reveal an extremely important aspect of Roman Catholicism during the Counter-Reformation era. T., perhaps, is not being too disingenuous, dressing up his passion in mystical clothes, he simply “quotes” one of the traditions of mystical theology, which describes spiritual delights in terms of earthly love, only “quotes” in reverse. In this scene, T’s demonism comes out unusually clearly. It is not a petty swindler, not a calculating criminal who emerges before the readers: the vain and very “materially” oriented family of Orgon was visited by the devil himself. I visited, as usual, wearing a mask. However, T.’s satanic mockery of Christian shrines is carried out by him in forms that are very reminiscent of the forms of confession of religion accepted by the Catholicism of the author’s time. The liturgical practice of the Counter-Reformation, reclaiming the space lost during the Reformation, makes abundant use of all forms of art. The sensual splendor of Baroque churches, the aggressive imagery of their decoration, even more theatrical worship, and finally, the “fashion” for spectacular, exalted religious behavior - that is, a noticeable increase in the visualized, “physically”, materially designed - characterize the new situation in religion. Self-sufficient aestheticism, “playing at the altar,” serves the predominance of the expressed over the expressed, the signifier over the signified. Thus, serving God suddenly falls under the power of an ambiguous, ghostly masquerade principle, inseparable from the spirit of the game, which so frightened medieval theologians. T. is the devil, who moved into the empty shell of faith, filling with himself the form in which God was supposed to reside. He is the same demon who embeds himself in something that is not alive, but pretends to be so: in godless temples, in unspiritualized prayer, in a performing priest. The image of T., precisely an empty saint (as defined by the sober servant Dorina), is the most expressive manifestation of the most significant problem of the era, relevant for both society and religion. The great comedian’s sensitivity to the nuances of the situation in the confession of the cult, apparently, forced the court clerics to seek the banning of Tartuffe, and forced a certain Sorbonne professor to come out with a brochure where Moliere is called “a demon in a corporeal shell and in human form.” The theme of a mask triumphant over the face, a seductively decorated deceptive mask that has replaced the face, turned out to be dramatically connected in the work of the moral philosopher with the theme of deep spiritual crisis, which swept society and did not escape the church. In more in a general sense“Tartuffe” is a play about the difficult relationship between human society and religion and the eternal problem of the non-identity of faith and its confession, as well as the price that people pay for their inability to distinguish the real from the imaginary. The third, final version of the comedy was performed at the Palais Royal theater in Paris on February 5, 1669. The role of T. was played by Du Croixy. Among the famous Tartuffes of the 19th century are both Coquelins, the elder and the younger; XX century - Louis Jouvet. In Russia, the image of T. in different time created by: V.A. Karatygin ( Alexandria Theater, 1841), M.N. Kedrov (Moscow Art Theater, 1941).
Lit.: S.Rossa-Mignot Introduction // Moliere. La Tartuffe. Paris, 1959; J. Guichamaud. Moliere. Une aventure thdatrale Tartuffe. Dom Juan. Le Misanthrope. Paris, 1963; see also lit. to the article "Skalen".
Not a single Moliere comedy brought him so much suffering, but also such enduring success. For five years the playwright fought for its production, correcting the text, softening the critical focus of the comedy. Moliere aimed his blow at the secret religious organization The “Society of the Holy Gifts”, which was engaged in surveillance of ill-intentioned fellow citizens and apostates. By removing specific references to the activities of the Society of the Blessed Sacrament, he achieved more by showing how religious fanaticism cripples the souls of believers. “Tartuffe” eventually became a parable about how ardent piety deprives a person of sound mind. Before meeting Tartuffe, Orgon was a caring father of the family, but the bigot and hypocrite hypnotized him with ostentatious asceticism so that the noble nobleman was ready to give the swindler everything he owned.
The name Tartuffe has gone down in history as a common noun. In him close-up hypocrisy shown
But for the comedy to reach the viewer, Moliere had to fight the powerful church authorities for five years. M dressed Tartuffe in secular clothes, and changed the name to “The Deceiver,” but even so everyone recognized Tartuffe. The ban on the work dealt a blow to Moliere's repertoire.
Tartuffe. Hypocrite. And here it doesn’t matter to Moliere whether he is a nobleman or a bourgeois. We do not know the environment in which he acquired this trait. His passion itself is significant - hypocrisy, a psychological trait, and not a social background. This is a crystal clear image, taken from the historical environment. Moliere strives to create pure abstract stage space and time. This desire for abstraction is characteristic of classicists, and this desire is reflected even more strongly in the characters. Moliere, typifying the image, cannot help but give the hero individual traits. Individual feature Tartuffe is that he is a bearer of hypocrisy. He is arrogant and stubborn. It's like a person. And as a type, he embodies what Moliere wants to express in him - condensed hypocrisy. One way to depict such an image is the hero’s surroundings. It emerges from this environment. Tartuffe is generally outlined by those around him. Orgon admires him. Dorina talks about him. This environment of Tartuffe is artificial. With the hand of Moliere, all obstacles were removed from the path of the protagonist. The reverse side of Tartuffe’s boundless arrogance and hypocrisy is Orgon’s boundless gullibility, his devotion to Tartuffe. Moliere's second way of achieving abstraction is hyperbole. He introduces this hyperbole with strokes. It is necessary that the exaggerated trait be truthful, real, fixed in gestures, intonation, phraseology, and behavior that are truly characteristic of a person obsessed with this passion. Tartuffe is absolute in his imaginary piety: he covers Dorina's neckline with a scarf. Classical principle Moliere brings characteristics to the last degree of completeness, surpassing in this sense the most orthodox classicists. In general, the principles of classicism are very important to him. For example, for What is important to him is his attraction to symmetry, to the balance of all parts. Moliere always has two heroes who complement each other using the method of contrast. In "Tartuffe" it is the arrogant Tartuffe and the gullible Orgon
15. Creativity of J. – B Molière
In the history of literature, Moliere is usually considered one of the representatives
classicism.
However, obeying the basic laws of the poetics of classicism, Moliere managed
use all realistic possibilities allowed within this framework
directions, and in some cases a brilliant artist emerged from these sometimes
constraining framework for him and created truly realistic
works and images that retain their significance to this day.
The typicality of images, the ability to find the most
essential, socially conditioned features of the human being he portrays
character - this main feature of realism appears with great force in all
best comedies Moliere.
Moliere surrounds his “heroes” with a non-fictional setting, in which
the heroes of classical tragedies act - he places them in a typical
living environment, surrounded by typical circumstances. Most often the action
his comedies develop in a bourgeois family (“Tartuffe”, “The Miser”, “The Tradesman in
nobility"). The relationship between the head of the house and members of the household, masters and
servants, parents and children, speech patterns, mindset, customs
French bourgeois of that time are represented in Moliere's comedies with fidelity
and liveliness.
In the accusatory content of comedies, in the choice positive characters
Moliere's democratic sympathies clearly appear.
Moliere used the weapon of laughter for the purposes of sharp social satire. This
led to the extreme sharpening of the images he created, to hyperbolization,
i.e., strengthening their leading features (Harpagon in the comedy “The Miser”, Tartuffe in
comedies of the same name, etc.).
A sharp division of heroes into positive and negative, introduction
the didactic nature of the comedy also limited the realism of the image.
In his work "A tradesman among the nobility" he creates the image of the tradesman Jourdain, who at all costs wants to become a nobleman. This passion takes over all the thoughts of the hero, becoming an obsession and pushing him to funny, unreasonable actions.
Moliere based the plot on a general trend that was increasingly taking root in the society of the 17th century. This time was characterized by a division into “court” and “city”. Moreover, in the “city” there was a constant tendency towards the “court”. In order to get as close as possible to those from whom their bourgeois origin separated them, the petty bourgeois bought positions, land holdings, and diligently (sometimes to the point of absurdity) mastered all the noble manners, language, morals, clothing style and many other features of the life of high society. But, despite all the efforts of the townspeople, the differences between them and the nobility remained significant. Moliere in his comedy sought to show destructive power"court" over the minds and actions of the bourgeoisie. And at the same time, his goal was to deprive the nobles of this power, to expose, to show their true low essence, the pettiness of their interests, hidden under the guise of nobility and sophistication, and, consequently, to emphasize the groundlessness of the aspirations of representatives of the philistinism to imitate the high society in everything. The harmful influence of such aspirations can be most clearly seen in the image of the main character of the comedy.
At first, Jourdain's passion for the nobility is simply an innocent weakness. But, as the plot develops, it grows, reaching enormous proportions, expressed in unthinkable, almost manic, actions and judgments. For the hero, the opportunity to get closer to the nobility is the only goal, the highest happiness. He tries to achieve maximum similarity with representatives of the nobility, and his whole life is spent imitating them in absolutely everything.
Gradually the idea of joining secular society Jourdain is so captivated that he loses all real understanding of the world and life. He completely loses his mind, causing harm, first of all, to himself with his actions. In his hobby, he reaches complete spiritual baseness, beginning to be ashamed of his loved ones, his parents. He does not pay attention to real values, to true human feelings.
In the times about which the author writes, the contrast between the nobility and the bourgeoisie manifested itself, first of all, in high level noble culture and the low level of development of the bourgeoisie. However, in his thirst for imitation, the hero does not see these obvious differences. He does not realize how comical the claims to secular grace and gloss, culture and education look, against the background of his rudeness, ignorance, vulgarity of language and manners. He is so captivated by his idea that, without any doubt, he agrees to undergo the ridiculous rite of passage into “mamamushi”. And, moreover, he is ready to actually believe in his transformation into some kind of noble person.
Moliere made many discoveries in the field of comedy. Always striving to truthfully depict reality, he created vivid typical characters in his works. So did his master Jourdain. Depicting the life and customs of contemporary society, reflecting the specifics social order, the author expressed his protest and strong demand for social justice in such a unique form.
16Metaphysical poetry and creativity of J. Donne.
METAPHYSICAL SCHOOL - direction in English poetry 1st half. 17th century (J. Donne, J. Herbert). The “metaphysical school” is distinguished by a spiritualistic character characteristic of Baroque poetics, an intense experience of world knowledge, poetic meditation, a complicated form - sophisticated metaphors, symbols, allegories.
The founder was John Donne (157301631) - born into the family of a successful merchant, head of a workshop of hardware merchants. Mother Donna was the great-niece of Thomas More, the famous Renaissance humanist and author of Utopia. In his family, the future poet received a strict Catholic upbringing. Then he studied at Oxford and Cambridge....
His followers Gervert, Crashaw, Vaughan, were guided by later creativity their predecessor, adopted his penchant for mysticism, abstract “metaphysical” reasoning, and sophisticated verbal ornamentation. Metaphysical poetry is characterized by a feeling of a disintegrated universe and the loss of the integrity of the idea of it. As Donne noted, the human mind is not able to restore the universe, but there remains hope for an inquisitive mind that seeks and finds the necessary (perhaps very distant) connections.
The main concept of Donnovsky aesthetics was conceit- a paradoxical or ironic comparison of extremely dissimilar objects in order to illustrate a particular idea (for example, the body of a beloved is compared with a map of the Earth, lovers moving away from each other - with the legs of a compass). The style technique uses dissonance and disharmony in a meaningful way (this emphasizes the authors’ characteristic feeling of confusion and confusion). The poetry of the “metaphysicians” gave the impression of exceptional intellectual complexity, was intended only for a select circle of readers and was alien to social and civil issues. He has written works on theological themes, poems with secular and religious content. Having started with poems of a cheerful, hedonistic character, the don over time became more and more immersed in a religious worldview, which meant the poet’s departure from the traditions of Renaissance humanism. (in the poem “The Path of the Soul” he indulges in reflection on the suffering of the soul in this world and the joys in the other world) the “anatomy of the world”, which interpreted the frailty of everything earthly, was very famous. At the heart of Donne’s poetry, he most fully embodied the principle of the “metaphysics of the school”; the concept is based on extensive and bizarre metaphors, which often grow into a whole metaphorical system, which gave the poem an intricate character. As a thinker, Donne is inferior to the Renaissance poets. He is deprived of that bright outlook on life inherent in humanist poets. His worldview is disharmonious, decadent, which indicates the inferiority of the poetry of the “metaphysics school”, which grows on the basis of public reaction. And only occasionally does simplicity and spontaneity slip into D.’s poetry.
Donne was only eight years younger than Shakespeare, but he already belonged to
to another generation.
Donne said about himself in one of his sonnets:
I am all struggle: to my misfortune,
Impermanence has become permanent...
The reader who first turns to “Songs and Sonnets” is immediately struck by
an extraordinary variety of moods and situations recreated by imagination
poet. "The Flea", the first poem in the cycle of publications of 1635, is witty
rethinks a common motif in erotic poetry of the 16th century: the poet
envies a flea touching the body of his beloved. Donne makes the flea
bite not only the girl, but also the hero, making the annoying insect a symbol
their carnal union:
Look and judge: here is a flea
She bit and shed a little blood,
First - mine, then - yours,
And our blood mixed in it.
Already the poem “Good Morning” is much more serious in tone. Poet
it talks about how lovers, waking up at dawn, realize
the strength of feeling, which creates for them a special world, opposed to all
universe:
Our souls have only now awakened,
We woke up and froze in anticipation;
Love has locked our door,
Turning a closet into a universe.
Donne's poetic style was so original that the reader
turning to his poetry after reading the elder Elizabethans, maybe
it seemed like he was in another world. Smooth, melodiously flowing verse
Donne contrasted the Elizabethans with the nervous-dramatic beginning of his lyrics.
Donne deliberately made metaphors an important part of his poetic technique.
Amazing readers with the surprise of associations, they helped the poet express
a movement of thought that played with various kinds of paradoxes and
oppositions.
Like the legs of a compass, doubly so
We are inseparable and united:
Wherever I wander, come to me
You reach out from the middle.
Tartuffe (character from J.B. Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe")
Tartuffe - central character J. B. Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe" (1664-1669), a hypocrite who ingratiated himself into Orgon's confidence, appropriating his house and fortune, but was exposed and arrested by royal decree.
His name was apparently taken by Moliere from the arsenal Italian comedy masks where the character Tartufo appeared (mention of him was first recorded in France in 1609). An association with the Old French truffe - “deception, trick” is also revealed. In the subtitle and in the list characters this character is given an extremely brief but very succinct characterization: “l"imposteur” (liar, deceiver, impostor), “faux devot” (holy saint, hypocrite). The performer is almost forty years old (or, if you believe him, thirty-five years old) this role in the final version of Ducroisy’s “Tartuffe” (whom Moliere introduced into the play to replace the deceased Duparc), his amazing possibilities of transformation (played Ducroisy’s dim-witted fiancé in “Funny Cossacks”, the farcical roles of Sotanville in “Georges Dandin” and Geronte in “The Tricks of Scapin” ", the lyrical lover Valère in "The Miser", the intriguer Sgribani in "Monsieur de Poursonnac", the servant Coviel in "The Bourgeois in the Nobility") allow us to imagine the age of Tartuffe and his extraordinary ability for mimicry, hypocrisy (the word hypocrite - "hypocrite" used by Moliere along with imposteur, faux dévot in relation to Tartuffe, originally meant “actor, comedian”) The portrait of Tartuffe (Panulf according to the second edition) is restored from the “Second petition brought to the king in his camp in front of the city of Lisle in Flanders”: “... I... dressed the hero in secular clothes; ... provided him with a small hat, long hair, a large collar, a sword and lace all over the dress...”
Tartuffe is a terrible hypocrite. He hides behind religion, pretends to be a saint, not believing in anything, and secretly carries out his dark affairs. A. S. Pushkin wrote about Tartuffe: “In Moliere, the hypocrite drags after the wife of his benefactor, the hypocrite; accepts the estate for safekeeping, hypocrite; asks for a glass of water, a hypocrite” (“Table-Talk”). For Tartuffe, hypocrisy is not just a dominant character trait, it is character itself. For classicists, character is a distinctive property, a general quality, the specificity of a particular human type. A character can be extremely, implausibly sharpened, because such sharpening does not distort it, but, on the contrary, makes it stand out. In this way, character differs from morals - characteristic traits, each of which cannot be sharpened to the point of contrasting others, so as not to distort the picture in the entire picture of morals. Morals are general, ordinary, customary, character is special, rare precisely in the degree of expression of the property dispersed in the morals of society. The image of Tartuffe, therefore, is intended not so much to criticize the morals of Moliere’s contemporary society, but rather to analyze philosophical understanding a certain property of human nature, so terrible that “Tartuffe” is more characterized by a tragicomic rather than a purely comedic beginning, this work really “comes close to tragedy,” in the words of Pushkin. In the preface to Tartuffe, Moliere speaks of hypocrisy: “Of all the vices, this vice is especially dangerous for the state; and we saw that theater has great corrective power.” However high degree generalizations in the image of Tartuffe do not prevent Molière from holding at gunpoint specific carriers of hypocrisy in the comedy; it is no coincidence that in the preface he writes: “... The people who are brought out in it have clearly shown that in France they are more helpful than all those whom I have so far brought it out." In “The first petition brought to the king regarding the comedy “Tartuffe””, the author understands the dialectic of the general (hypocrisy) and the specific (hypocrites) very clearly: “Since the duty of comedy is to correct people, amusing them, I believed that due to the nature of my occupation, the best I can do is to expose the vices of my age in funny images; and since hypocrisy is undoubtedly one of the most widespread, the most intolerable and the most dangerous vices, it seemed to me, sir, that I would do a considerable service to all honest people in your kingdom if I wrote a comedy that would ridicule hypocrites and properly show off all the learned antics of these extremely virtuous people, all the secret tricks of these counterfeiters of piety, trying to deceive others with feigned zeal and counterfeit goodness”; but: “The Tartuffes at hand contrived to enter into favor with Your Majesty, and the originals succeeded in eliminating the copy, no matter how innocent it was and no matter how similar it was found.” Specific allusions have lost their relevance, in addition, the French researcher J. Bordonov is right: “...You have to be French to understand what in this comedy infuriates the saints and why the king never lifts the ban on it.” Currently, Tartuffe is relevant primarily as a character, a world literary type, an eternal image.
Tartuffe's character does not change throughout the work. But it is revealed gradually. The composition of the comedy is very original and unexpected: main character Tartuffe appears only in Act III. Moliere, in the preface to the comedy, justifies it this way: “... I worked on it with all the caution that the delicacy of the subject required, and... I applied all my art and all my efforts to distinguish the image of the Hypocrite from the image of the true believer . Therefore, I spent two whole acts preparing the appearance of my scoundrel. He does not keep the listener in doubt for a single minute; he is immediately recognized by the signs that I gave him; and from beginning to end he does not utter a single word, does not commit a single action that would not portray to the audience a bad person and would not set off the truly honest person whom I contrast with him.”
The first two acts are a dispute about Tartuffe. The hero's hypocrisy leads to the fact that there are two directly opposing views on him. The head of the family into which Tartuffe has infiltrated, Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle consider Tartuffe a holy man, their trust in the hypocrite is limitless. The religious enthusiasm that Tartuffe aroused in them makes them blind and ridiculous. At the other pole are Orgon’s son Damis, daughter Mariana with her lover Valera, wife Elmira, and other heroes. Among all these characters who hate Tartuffe, the maid Dorina especially stands out. For Orgon, Tartuffe is the height of all perfection, for Dorina it is “a beggar who came here thin and barefoot,” and now “considers himself a ruler” (Act I, scene 1; trans. M. Lozinsky). It’s as if two phantoms of Tartuffe appear. For Madame Pernelle, he is a “pure soul”, “He scourges everything sinful publicly / And wants only what heaven wants” (Act I, Rev. 1). Dorina, in the famous dialogue about Tartuffe, characterizes him as a glutton and a lazy man: “Pulp, fresh-faced and with lips like cherries,” “He ate two partridges and ate a lamb’s butt,” “We are languishing in sweet slumber, / He, getting up from the table, he went to his room stealthily / And lay down in a warm bed without delay...”, “At breakfast he drained the bottle to the bottom” - and all this during the mistress’s illness (Act I, iv. 5). In Act II, a third phantom appears - Tartuffe as imagined by Orgon. In the previous act, he called Tartuffe four times “le pauvre homme” - the poor fellow, the poor one. Now this phrase takes on a literal meaning: Tartuffe is from a noble family that has fallen into poverty and has lost its once profitable lands. Therefore, Orgon can become related to him, and it will not be shameful. He envisions his daughter Mariana, in love with young Valera, to be Tartuffe's wife.
But then Tartuffe appeared. He turns out to be not as primitive as Dorina painted him, but this, of course, is not “le pauvre homme” and certainly not the saint that he tries to appear in the eyes of the inhabitants of Orgon’s house. His very first words demonstrate hypocrisy. Noticing Dorina, Tartuffe loudly addresses the servant Laurent behind the stage: “Laurent, accept the whip, accept the hair shirt, / And with our hearts on high we bless the right hand. If they ask, then I went to prison / To make a meager contribution to those cast into darkness.” Then he gives Dorina a handkerchief: “Cover your chest so that I can hear you” (Act III, scene 2). But in the next episode he behaves very boldly, deciding to seduce Orgon’s wife Elmira. He squeezes Elmira’s fingers, puts his hand on her lap, pulls a chair close, continuing to hypocritically claim that he is feeling the velvet of the dress and admiring the lace. Having made a confession: “No, the heart in my chest is not icy” (Act III, Rev. 3), Tartuffe immediately unleashes a stream of Pharisaic words on Elmira: “The love that draws our spirit to eternal beauties does not extinguish in us the love for beauty fleeting...” (Act III, appearance 3).
Acts III and IV are structured very similarly: Tartuffe falls into the “mousetrap” twice, his essence becomes obvious. He acts completely shamelessly towards Orgon's wife, being confident in his power over the owner of the house. For the first time, Orgon's son Damis hears his frank confessions to Elmira. But Orgon does not believe his revelations; Tartuffe has some kind of hypnotic effect on him. Orgon not only does not expel Tartuffe, but, on the contrary, gives him all his goods. It was necessary to provoke Tartuffe and repeat this entire scene especially for Orgon so that he could see the light. This scene of Act IV (phenomenon 5), in which Tartuffe again demands love from Elmira, and Orgon sits under the table and hears everything, is one of the most famous scenes in all of Moliere’s works. It was in vain that Dorina feared that such a cunning rogue as Tartuffe would unravel the trap. Elmira rightly objected to her: “No, we are gullible when we love another, / And by self-love we completely destroy ourselves” (Act IV, Rev. 3). Tartuffe got caught.
Now Orgon understood the truth. But unexpectedly Madame Pernelle objects to him, who cannot believe in Tartuffe’s crime (Act V, scene 3). No matter how angry Orgon is with her, nothing can convince her until Tartuffe expels the entire family from the house that now belongs to him and brings an officer to arrest Orgon as a traitor to the king (Orgon entrusted Tartuffe with the secret documents of the frondeurs - the opposition-minded nobility). Thus, Moliere emphasizes the special danger of hypocrisy: it is difficult to believe in the baseness and immorality of a hypocrite until you are directly confronted with his criminal activities and see his face without a pious mask. Act V, in which Tartuffe, having thrown off his mask, threatens Orgon with the greatest troubles, acquires tragic features, the comedy develops into tragicomedy. Orgon, who has regained his sight, has become the object of Tartuffe’s blackmail, and with him his entire family ends up on the street. And what is especially dramatic is that there is nowhere to expect salvation: none of the heroes of the work can overcome Tartuffe.
But Moliere, obeying the laws of the genre, ends the comedy with a happy denouement: it turns out that the officer whom Tartuffe brought to arrest Orgon has a royal order to arrest Tartuffe himself. The king (an off-stage character) had been keeping an eye on this swindler for a long time, and as soon as Tartuffe’s activities became dangerous, he immediately ordered his arrest. Last words Tartuffe: “But why to prison?” (“Pourquoi donc la prison?” - Act V, scene 7) echo the first line of the hero in the comedy, Tartuffe really goes to prison, but hypocritical compassion for the prisoners, about whom he had nothing to do, is replaced by genuine fear for himself.
However, the completion of Tartuffe represents an ostensibly happy ending. Tartuffe is not a specific person, but a generalized image, a literary type (Le Tartuffe), behind him are thousands of hypocrites. The king, on the contrary, is not a type, but the only person in the state. It is impossible to imagine that he could know about all the Tartuffes. Thus, the tragicomic connotation of the work is not removed by its happy ending.
The role, like the entire comedy, is written in Alexandrian verse, to which Moliere addressed only in works that were intended for strict classicist critics and claimed a certain place in literature. Moliere is unusually laconic. From 1962 lines comedy Tartuffe y owns 272 complete and 19 incomplete lines (less than 15% of the text). For comparison, Hamlet's role is five times larger. And in Moliere’s comedy itself, the role of Tartuffe is almost 100 lines less than the role of Orgon. The distribution of the text by act is unexpected: completely absent from the stage in acts I and II, Tartuffe dominates only in act III (166 complete and 13 incomplete lines), his role is noticeably reduced in act IV (89 complete and 5 incomplete lines) and almost disappears in Act V (17 complete and 1 incomplete line). However, the image of Tartuffe does not lose its power: it grows from a synthetic alloy of his ideas, actions, reflections in the perception of other heroes, the catastrophic consequences of hypocrisy, as well as from the free information that viewers and readers add, based on their personal experience.
In creating the image of Tartuffe, Moliere relied on a centuries-old tradition dating back to antiquity (“Characters” by Aristotle’s student Theophrastus). In the New Testament, religious hypocrisy (Pharisees) is condemned by Jesus Christ. Religious bigotry is ridiculed by Boccaccio in the character of Ceppelletto (The Decameron). Hypocrisy as a means of strengthening power was tolerated by N. Machiavelli (“The Prince”), Ignatius of Loyola considered it acceptable for the activities of the Jesuit order he founded. Hypocrisy was the basis for the secret Society of the Holy Sacrament, founded in 1629 by Duke Vantadur, which played a sinister role in the prohibition of comedy in 1664. Shakespeare created a stunning image of Richard III, one of whose main means in the struggle for the throne was hypocrisy. French writers(Rabelais, Montaigne) touched on this topic. Forced hypocrisy for the sake of the peace of the country was portrayed by Corneille in the tragedy “Cinna,” where Emperor Augustus offers his enemy Cinna friendship instead of executing him as a conspirator. Among the possible sources, researchers name Scarron's story “The Hypocrites,” in which the scoundrel and glutton Montufar fooled parishioners under the guise of a humble monk. In 1669, when Moliere obtained permission to present the third edition of Tartuffe, the premiere of Racine's tragedy Britannic took place, in which the hypocritical villain Nero was portrayed. However, the image of Tartuffe is original and has no specific literary prototypes. This is confirmed by the fact that Moliere freely replaced the name of the hero in the second edition with something else - Panyulf. Although the first and second editions of the comedy have not reached us, the transition from a three-act composition (in the first edition) to a five-act one shows that the plot of Tartuffe’s image could be modified. Some studies attempt to find the prototype of Tartuffe in life. It is called, for example, Prince Conti, who played a big role in the fate of Molière’s troupe (for some time it bore the name of this nobleman) and is known for his hypocrisy.
The role of Tartuffe at the premiere of the first edition of the comedy (12.5.1664, Versailles, 3 acts, the play was banned, the text has not been preserved) was played by Duparc (real name - Rene Berthelot). In Molière's early farce comedies, he created the mask of Gros-Rene - a good-natured fat man. The second version (“The Deceiver,” 5.8.1667, Palais Royal, Paris, 5 acts, the text is softened, the name Tartuffe is replaced by Panulphe, a tremendous success, but banned after the first performance) also has not survived. Duparc died in 1664, and Moliere replaced him with the wonderful actor Ducroisy, who was the first to play the role of Tartuffe in the third edition that has come down to us (premiere 5.2.1669, Palais Royal). The success was enormous, the greatest in the history of Molière's troupe; during Molière's lifetime, the performance was performed on the stage of the Palais Royal 77 times - an unprecedented case for that time. Subsequently, on the stage of the Comédie Française, the comedy was performed about 10 times a year for more than three centuries, about 3,000 performances were given. In this and other theaters, major actors shone in the role of Tartuffe. On turn of XIX-XX centuries, B. K. Coquelin Sr. gave the role of Tartuffe a touch of mysticism. E. A. O. Coquelin Jr. was more classical in his interpretation of the image of Tartuffe. E. Sylvain interpreted him as an “unbridled animal.” In the 1920s, L. Guitry emphasized the everyday, concrete features of the character, giving him a resemblance to Balzac’s Vautrin. J. Ionnel made Tartuffe a sinister figure. In 1950, L. Jouvet presented Tartuffe in a tragic vein. One of the highest achievements last decades- the performance of the role of Tartuffe by Roger Planchon, who enhanced the tragicomic sound both in this image and in the performance he staged as a whole. In Russia best performers the roles of Tartuffe - V. A. Karatygin, I. I. Sosnitsky, A. P. Lensky (XIX century), I. Pevtsov, M. N. Kedrov (XX century). In the adaptation by A. S. Norov, the role of Fariseev was played by P. S. Mochalov and V. N. Davydov. The production of Tartuffe at the Moscow Art Theater (premiered in 1939) was last job K. S. Stanislavsky, his artistic testament.
Text: Moliere J.B. Collection. cit.: In 2 vols. M., 1957. T. 2.
Vl. A. Lukov
Works and heroes: Heroes.
The playwright Moliere lived in the 17th century in the times that we mainly imagine from the novel “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas, but Dumas lived in the 19th century and was a fiction writer, and Moliere wrote comedies and farces and was a contemporary of his characters.
So it turned out that Alexandre Dumas’s France of that time was populated by noble knights, rare villains and good-natured people, and in Moliere’s work “Tartuffe” there are more realistic heroes and plausible events.
The plot of the comedy “Tartuffe” is very simple, but this plot exists both in life and in literature to this day. When the naivety and gullibility (as well as some stupidity) of one person meets the cunning, pretense and meanness of another, the latter always wins. And only the king or God can help the losing side in this case.
Rich, but convinced of Christian virtues, Orgon, naive and gullible, becomes the victim of an unprincipled and immoral man named Tartuffe, who poses (for the benefit of the cause) as a saint.
In terms of social status, Orgon is obviously a bourgeois (although it is not clear how he could get rich, being so naive and God-fearing). Tartuffe is a representative of the criminal world of that time. He's just a fraud.
The rest of the heroes of Moliere's tragicomedy: his wife, daughter and son, as well as the daughter's fiancé are described by the author as template people: the daughter cannot disobey her father, her nobleman fiancé is hot-tempered, but he is above these plebeian squabbles, the wife is submissive and trusts her husband. All the characters around Orgon see that Tartuffe is a bad person, but they cannot do anything to oppose him. Why? Because Orgon is the owner of capital and property. And as he says, so it will be.
The only person in the play who actively opposes Tartuffe is Dorina. She's a maid. She has nothing to lose and can afford to be bold and act.
Moliere's play "Tartuffe" is a comedy, and when you read a comedy, or you are a spectator in the theater, you have to laugh. What's so funny about the situation? All the characters in the work, as well as readers and spectators, understand that Orgon, in the shackles of his beliefs, is simply a fool. And everyone laughs at fools.
His epiphany comes very late: when he is already ruined. Tragic moment. But then a kind and fair king comes onto the scene. The scoundrel is punished. And the bourgeois Orgon is prosperous and happy again.
Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe" is a classic for those times. The eternal theme of the struggle between good and evil. But then and now Orgon’s misadventures do not evoke any sympathy. In modern times, the swindler Tartuffe is a more sympathetic image of a smart, arrogant businessman who achieves his goal by any means necessary.
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