26 The poetics of Moliere’s “high comedy” (“Tartuffe”, “Don Juan”).
In order to replenish the repertoire of his troupe, Moliere begins to write plays in which:
- synthesizes the traditions of crude folk farces
- the influence of Italian comedy is visible
- all this is refracted through the prism of his French mind and rationalism
Moliere is a born comedian; all the plays written by him belong to the comedy genre:
· entertaining comedies
· sitcom
Comedy of manners
Comedy-ballets
· “high” - that is, classic - comedies.
By presenting one of his early comedies at the court of Louis XIV, he won over one of his most devoted fans, the king, and with the patronage of the sovereign, Moliere and his highly professional troupe opened his own theater in Paris in 1658. The plays “Funny Primitive Women” (1659) and “A Lesson for Wives” (1662) brought him nationwide fame and many enemies who recognized themselves in the satirical images of his comedies. And even the influence of the king did not save Moliere from the banning of his best plays created in the sixties: “Tartuffe” was twice banned for the public theater, “Don Juan” was removed from the repertoire. The fact is that in Molière’s work, comedy ceased to be a genre designed only to make the audience laugh; Moliere for the first time he brought ideological content and social relevance to comedy.
Features of Moliere's “high comedy”
According to the classic hierarchy of genres, comedy - low genre, because it depicts reality in its everyday, real appearance.
In Molière, comedy is entirely located within the real, most often bourgeois, world.
His heroes have recognizable characters and common names in life; the plot revolves around family and love problems; Moliere's private life is based on property, and yet in his best comedies, the playwright reflects everyday life from the perspective of a high humanistic ideal, thereby his comedy acquires an ideal beginning, in other words, it becomes a cleansing, educational, classic comedy.
Moliere's friend Nicolas Boileau, the legislator of classicist poetics, in “Poetic Art” puts his work at the highest level, next to the ancient authors - Menander and Plautus - precisely thanks to moral pathos Moliere's works.
Moliere himself reflected on his innovation in the genre of comedy in two plays written in defense of the “School for Wives” - “Critique of the “School for Wives”” and “The Impromptu of Versailles” (1663). Through the lips of the hero of the first play, Chevalier Durant, Moliere expresses his credo as a comedian:
I find it much easier to talk about high feelings, fight with fortune in poetry, blame fate, curse the gods, rather than take a closer look at the funny traits in a person and show on stage the vices of society so that it is entertaining... When you portray ordinary people, you have to write from life. Portraits should be similar, and if people of your time are not recognized in them, then you have not achieved your goal... Making decent people laugh is not an easy task...
Moliere, therefore, elevates comedy to the level of tragedy, says that the task of a comedy writer is more difficult than that of a tragedy writer.
The essential feature of high comedy was tragic element, most clearly manifested in “The Misanthrope,” which is sometimes called a tragicomedy and even a tragedy.
Molière's comedies touch on wide circle problems modern life:
- relationship between fathers and children
- upbringing
- marriage and family
- moral state of society (hypocrisy, greed, vanity, etc.)
- class, religion, culture, science (medicine, philosophy), etc.
Moliere puts forward to the fore not entertaining, but educational and satirical tasks. His comedies are characterized by sharp, flagellating satire, irreconcilability with social evil and, at the same time, sparkling healthy humor and cheerfulness.
Characteristics of Moliere
Main featureMoliere's characters - independence, activity, the ability to arrange their own happiness and their destiny in the fight against the old and outdated. Each of them has their own beliefs, own system the views that he defends before his opponent; opponent's piece is required for a classic comedy, because the action in it develops in the context of disputes and discussions.
Another feature of Moliere's characters is their ambiguity. Many of them have not one, but several qualities (Don Juan), or as the action progresses, their characters become more complex or change (Orgon in Tartuffe, Georges Dandin).
All negative characters have one thing in common - violation of the measure. Measure is the main principle of classicist aesthetics. In Moliere's comedies it is identical to common sense and naturalness (and therefore morality). Their carriers often turn out to be representatives of the people (the servant in Tartuffe, the plebeian wife of Jourdain in Meshchanin in the nobility). By showing the imperfection of people, Moliere realizes main principle comedy genre - through laughter to harmonize the world and human relationships.
"Tartuffe"
Brief historical background
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. 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" is Moliere's first comedy in which certain features of realism. In general, it, like his early plays, is subject to key rules and compositional techniques classic work; however, Moliere often departs from them (for example, in Tartuffe the rule of unity of time is not fully observed - the plot includes a backstory about the acquaintance of Orgon and the saint).
What is it all about?
“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.
Character Features
Characters in classic comedy usually express one characteristic feature.
- TartuffeMoliere embodies the universal human the vice of hypocrisy, hiding behind religious hypocrisy, and in this sense, its 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. Wearing a mask- property of Tartuffe's soul. Hypocrisy is not his only vice, but it is brought to the fore, and others negative traits this property is strengthened and emphasized. Moliere managed to synthesize a very real concentrate of hypocrisy, highly condensed almost to the absolute. In reality this would be impossible. 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. It turns out to be unexpected distribution of text by acts: completely absent from the stage in Acts I and II, Tartuffe dominates only in Act III, his role is noticeably reduced in Act IV and almost disappears in Act V. However, the image of Tartuffe does not lose its power. It is revealed through the character's ideas, his actions, the perception of other characters, and the depiction of the catastrophic consequences of hypocrisy.
- Also many other characters are one-dimensional Comedies: familiar roles young lovers represent images Mariana and her fiance Valera, lively maid — image of Dorina; reasoner, that is, a character who “pronounces” the moral lesson of what is happening for the viewer - Elmira's brother, Cleant.
- However, in every play by Moliere there is a role 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, father of a family - at the same time embodies 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.
Form and composition
According to form“Tartuffe” strictly adheres to the classic 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 Valère and Mariana. The comedy is written, as always with Moliere, in simple, clear and natural language.
CompositionThe comedy is very original and unexpected: the main character Tartuffe appears only in Act III. First two acts - this is a debate about Tartuffe. 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 Marie with her lover Valerie, Orgon’s wife Elmira, and other heroes. Among all these characters who hate Tartuffe, the maid Dorina especially stands out. In many of Moliere's comedies, people from the people are smarter, more talented, more resourceful, and have more energy than their masters. For Orgon, Tartuffe is the height of all perfection, for Dorina it is “a beggar who came here thin and barefoot”, and now “fancies himself as a ruler.”
Acts III and IV are constructed very similarly: Tartuffe, who finally appears, falls into the “mousetrap” twice, his essence becomes obvious. This saint has decided to seduce Orgon’s wife Elmira and acts completely shamelessly.
For the first time, Orgon’s son Damis hears his frank confessions to Elmira. But Orgon does not believe his revelations; he not only does not kick Tartuffe out, but, on the contrary, gives him his home. It was necessary to repeat this entire scene especially for Orgon so that he could see the light. To expose the hypocrite, Moliere resorts to traditional farcical scene“The husband under the table”, when Orgon sees with his own eyes Tartuffe’s courtship of Elmira and hears his words with his own ears. Now Orgon understood the truth. But unexpectedly he is objected to by Madame Pernelle, who cannot believe in Tartuffe’s crime. 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 Fronde participants). So Moliere emphasizes 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 and his family with the greatest troubles, acquires tragic features, the comedy develops into tragicomedy. The basis of the tragicomic in Tartuffe is Orgon’s insight. As long as he blindly believed Tartuffe, he only caused laughter and condemnation. But finally Orgon realized his mistake and repented of it. And now he begins to evoke pity and compassion as a person who has become the victim of a scoundrel. The drama of the situation is enhanced by the fact that the whole family is on the street with Orgon. 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 happy interchange: It turns out that the officer whom Tartuffe brought to arrest Orgon has a royal order to arrest Tartuffe himself. The king had been keeping an eye on this swindler for a long time, and as soon as Tartuffe’s activities became dangerous, a decree was immediately sent for his arrest. However, the completion of Tartuffe represents imaginary happy denouement. Tartuffe is not a specific person, but a generalized image, literary type, 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.
Comedies "Don Juan" and "The Misanthrope"
During the period when “Tartuffe” was banned, Moliere created two more masterpieces in the genre of “high comedy”: “Don Juan” was staged in 1665, and “The Misanthrope” in 1666.
"Don Juan"
Comedy plot was borrowed from an Italian script based on Tirso de Molina's comedy "The Mischief of Seville". The Italians' performance ran throughout the entire season and did not cause any particular complaints. Moliere's production immediately raised a wave of attacks and abuse. The struggle between the church and the poet became very acute.
Image of Don Juan
In the image of Don Juan, Moliere branded the guy he hates a dissolute and cynical aristocrat, a man who not only commits his atrocities with impunity, but also flaunts the fact that, due to the nobility of his origin, he has the right not to take into account the laws of morality, obligatory only for people of ordinary rank. Such views reigned at court, where fidelity and marital honor were viewed as bourgeois prejudices and where the king himself set a similar tone, changing his permanent and temporary favorites with the ease of a Molière hero.
But what seemed to the aristocrats a harmless change of pleasure, a kind of decoration of an idle existence, Moliere saw from the human and dramatic side. Standing on the positions of humanism and citizenship, the playwright showed in the image of Don Juan not only a frivolous conqueror of women's hearts, but also a cynical and cruel heir to feudal rights, mercilessly, in the name of a momentary whim, destroying the life and honor of young women who trusted him. Abuse of a person, trampling on the dignity of women, mockery of their pure and trusting souls - all this was shown in the comedy as a result of the unbridled vicious passions of an aristocrat in society.
Anticipating Figaro's caustic attacks, Don Juan's servant, Sganarelle, says to his master: “...maybe you think that if you are of a noble family, that if you have a blond, artfully curled wig, a hat with feathers, a dress embroidered with gold, and fiery-colored ribbons, maybe you think that this makes you smarter, that everything is allowed to you and no one can tell you the truth? Find out from me, from your servant, that sooner or later... a bad life will lead to a bad death..." In these words one can clearly hear notes of social protest.
But, giving his hero such a definite characteristic, Moliere does not deprive him of those personal, subjective qualities, using which Don Juan deceived everyone who had to deal with him, and especially women. While remaining a heartless man, he was subject to ardent, instant passions, possessed resourcefulness and wit, and even a peculiar charm.
The adventures of Don Juan, no matter how sincere impulses of the heart they are justified, brought the greatest evil to the people around them. Listening only to the voice of his passions, Don Juan completely drowned out his conscience; he cynically drove away his lovers who were disgusted with him and brazenly recommended that his elderly parent go to the next world as soon as possible, and not bother him with tedious lectures. Moliere saw perfectly well that sensual impulses, not restrained by the reins of public morality, bring the greatest harm to society.
The depth of the characterization of Don Juan lay in the fact that in the image of a modern aristocrat, seized by an irrepressible thirst for pleasure, Moliere showed those extreme limits to which the love of life of the Renaissance hero reached. The once progressive aspirations directed against ascetic mortification are in the new historical conditions, no longer restrained by any barriers of public morality and humanistic ideals, degenerated into predatory individualism, into an open and cynical manifestation of egoistic sensuality. But at the same time, Moliere endowed his hero with bold, free-thinking ideas that objectively contributed to the destruction of religious views and the spread of materialistic views of the world in society.
In a conversation with Sganarelle, Don Juan admits that he does not believe in heaven, nor in hell, nor in burning, nor in the afterlife, and when the puzzled servant asks him: “What do you believe in?” - then Don Juan calmly answers: “I believe, Sganarelle, that twice two is four, and twice four is eight.”
This arithmetic, in addition to the cynical recognition of the benefits of the highest moral truth, also had its own wisdom. The freethinker Don Juan did not believe in an all-consuming idea, not in the holy spirit, but only into the reality of human existence limited to earthly existence.
Image of Sganarelle
Contrasting Don Juan with his servant Sganarelle, Moliere outlined the paths that would later lead to bold denunciations of Figaro. The clash between Don Juan and Sganarelle revealed conflict between aristocratic self-will and bourgeois sanity, but Moliere did not limit himself to the external opposition of these two social types, to criticism of the aristocracy. He also revealed contradictions hidden in bourgeois moralizing. The social consciousness of the bourgeoisie was already developed enough for one to see the vicious egoistic side of the sensibility of the Renaissance, but the “third estate” had not yet entered its heroic period, and its ideals had not yet begun to seem as absolute as they would seem to the enlighteners. Therefore, Moliere had the opportunity to show not only the strong, but also the weak side of Sganarelle’s worldview and character, to show the bourgeois limitations of this type.
When Sganarelle, condemning Don Juan, says that he “does not believe in heaven, nor in saints, nor in God, nor in the devil,” what he “lives like vile cattle, like an epicurean pig, like a real Sardanapalus, who does not want to listen to Christian teachings and considers everything that we believe in nonsense,” then in this philippic one can clearly hear Moliere’s irony about the limitations of the virtuous Sganarelle. In response to the philosophical arithmetic of Don Juan, Sganarelle develops a proof of the existence of God from the fact of the rationality of the universe. Demonstrating on himself the perfection of divine creations, Sganarelle becomes so carried away by gesticulations, turns, leaps and jumps that he eventually falls off his feet and gives the atheist a reason to say: “It’s your reasoning that broke your nose.” And in this scene, Moliere is clearly standing behind Don Juan. Praising the rationality of the universe, Sganarelle proved only one thing - his own stupidity. Sganarelle makes noble speeches, but in reality he is naive and openly cowardly. And, of course, the church fathers were right when they were indignant at Moliere for presenting this comic servant as the only defender of Christianity. But the author of Tartuffe knew that religious morality was so elastic that it could be preached by any person, since it did not require a clear conscience, but only faithful speech. Personal virtues had no meaning here: a person can commit the most evil deeds, and no one will consider him a sinner if he covers his vicious face with a thin mask of ostentatious piety.
“Tartuffe” was banned, but a passionate desire to expose hypocrisy burned in the poet’s heart. He could not restrain his anger against the Jesuits and bigots and forced Don Juan, that outspoken sinner, to speak sarcastically about the hypocritical scoundrels: “Even if their intrigues are known, even if everyone knows who they are, they still do not lose confidence: they only have to bow their heads once or twice, sigh sadly or roll their eyes - and now everything is settled...” And here in the words of Don Juan Moliere's voice is heard. Don Juan decides to try the magical power of hypocrisy on himself. “I want to hide under this blessed canopy so that I can act in complete serenity,” he says. “I will not give up my sweet habits, but I will hide from the light and have fun on the sly. And if they cover me, I won’t lift a finger; the whole gang will stand up for me and protect me from anyone. In a word, this The best way do whatever you want with impunity.”
Indeed, hypocrisy is an excellent defense against attack. Don Juan is accused of perjury, and he, humbly folding his hands and rolling his eyes to the sky, mutters: “This is how heaven wants”, “This is the will of heaven”, “I obey the voice of heaven” etc. But Don Juan is not the type to play the cowardly role of a hypocritical righteous man for a long time. The impudent consciousness of his impunity allowed him to act and without a mask. If in life there was no justice against Don Juan, then on the stage Moliere could raise his angry voice against the criminal aristocrat, and comedy finale- the thunder and lightning that struck Don Juan was not a traditional stage effect, but figurative expression of retribution, embodied in stage form, a harbinger of the terrible punishment that will fall on the heads of the aristocrats.
"Misanthrope" is Moliere's least funny play and probably the best example of high comedy.
The action of the comedy begins with a dispute between Alceste and his friend Philinte. Philint preaches a conciliatory philosophy that is convenient for life. Why take up arms against your way of life when you can’t change it anyway? It is much wiser to adapt to public opinion and indulge secular tastes. But Alceste hates such crookedness of the soul. He says to Filint:
But since you like the vices of our days,
Damn you, you are not one of my people.
Alceste passionately hates the people around him; but this hatred concerns not the very essence of human nature, but those perversions that a false social system brings with it. Anticipating the ideas of the Enlightenment, Moliere, in the image of his Misanthrope, depicts the clash of “natural man” with “artificial” people, corrupted by bad laws. Alceste leaves the vile world with its cruel and deceitful inhabitants with disgust.
Alceste is connected with this hated society only by passionate love for Celimene. Young Celimene is an intelligent and determined girl, but her consciousness and feelings are completely subordinated to the morals of high society, and therefore she is empty and heartless. After Celimene's high-society admirers, offended by her slander, leave her, she agrees to become Alceste's wife. Alceste is infinitely happy, but he sets a condition for his future girlfriend: they must leave the world forever and live in solitude among nature. Selimene refuses such extravagance, and Alceste returns her word.
Alceste cannot imagine happiness in that world where one must live according to wolf laws - his ideological conviction triumphs over insane passion. But Alceste leaves society neither devastated nor defeated. It was not without reason that, while ridiculing the pompous poems of the Marquis, he contrasted them with a charming folk song, cheerful and sincere. Praising the rural muse, the Misanthrope showed himself to be a man who deeply loves and understands his people. But Alceste, like all his contemporaries, did not yet know the paths that lead a lone protester to the camp of popular indignation. Moliere himself did not know these paths, since they had not yet been paved by history.
Alceste from the beginning to the end of the comedy remains a Protestant, but Moliere cannot find a great life theme for his hero. The process that Alceste conducts with his opponent is not included in the action of the play; it is, as it were, a symbol of the injustice reigning in the world. Alceste has to limit his struggle only to criticism of cutesy poems and reproaches to the flighty Celimene. Moliere could not yet construct a play with significant social conflict because such a conflict has not yet been prepared by reality; and yet in life the voices of protest were heard more and more clearly, and Moliere not only heard them, but also added his loud and distinct voice to them.
Despite the success of "Funny Primroses", Molière's troupe still often plays tragedies, although still without much success. After a series of failures, Moliere comes to a remarkably bold idea. Tragedy attracts with the opportunity to raise large social and moral problems, but it does not bring success and is not close to the audience of the Palais Royal. The comedy attracts the widest audience, but it does not have much content. This means that it is necessary to transfer moral issues from tragedy with its conventional ancient characters into a comedy depicting modern life ordinary people. This idea was first implemented in the comedy “The School for Husbands” (1661), which was followed by the even brighter comedy “The School for Wives” (1662). They pose the problem of education. To reveal it, Moliere combines the plots of a French farce and an Italian comedy of masks: he portrays guardians who raise girls left without parents in order to subsequently marry them.
Moliere's mature work. For 1664-1670 marks the peak of the great playwright's creativity. It was during these years that he created his best comedies: “Tartuffe”, “Don Juan”, “The Misanthrope”, “The Miser”, “The Bourgeois in the Nobility”.
The greatest comedy of Moliere "Tartuffe, or the Deceiver""(1664-1669) had the most difficult fate. It was first staged in 1664 during a grand celebration organized by the king in honor of his wife and his mother. Moliere wrote satirical play, in which he exposed the “Society of the Holy Gifts” - a secret religious institution that sought to subordinate all spheres of life in the country to its power. The king liked the comedy, as he feared the strengthening of the power of the clergy. But Queen Mother Anne of Austria was deeply outraged by the satire: after all, she was the unofficial patron of the “Society of the Holy Sacrament.” The clergy demanded that Moliere be severely tortured and burned at the stake for insulting the church. Comedy was banned. But Moliere continued to work on it, he adds two new actions to the original version, improves the characterization of the characters, and moves from criticism of fairly specific phenomena to more generalized issues. "Tartuffe" takes on the features of "high comedy".
In 1666, Anna of Austria died. Moliere took advantage of this and in 1667 presented the second version of Tartuffe on the stage of the Palais Royal. He renamed the hero Panyulf, called the comedy “The Deceiver,” and threw out especially harsh satirical passages or softened them. The comedy was a great success, but was again banned after the first performance. The playwright did not give up. Finally, in 1669, he staged the third version of Tartuffe. This time Moliere strengthened the satirical sound of the play and brought its artistic form to perfection. It was this third version of Tartuffe that was published and has been read and performed on stage for more than three hundred years.
Moliere focused his main attention on creating the character of Tartuffe and exposing his vile activities. Tartuffe (his name, coined by Molière, comes from the word “deception”) is a terrible hypocrite. He hides behind religion, pretends to be a saint, but he himself does not believe in anything, and secretly carries out his affairs. A. S. Pushkin wrote about Tartuffe: “In Moliere, the hypocrite drags after the wife of his benefactor, the hypocrite; asks for a glass of water, a hypocrite.” For Tartuffe, hypocrisy is not at all a dominant character trait, it is character itself. This character of Tartuffe does not change during the course of the play. But it is revealed gradually. When creating the role of Tartuffe, Moliere was unusually laconic. Of the 1962 lines of the comedy, Tartuffe 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 one incomplete line). However, the image of Tartuffe does not lose its power. It is revealed through the character's ideas, his actions, the perception of other characters, and the depiction of the catastrophic consequences of hypocrisy.
The composition of the comedy is very original and unexpected: the main character Tartuffe appears only in the third act. The first two acts are a dispute about Tartuffe. 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. In many of Moliere's comedies, people from the people are smarter, more resourceful, more energetic, and more talented than their masters. For Orgon, Tartuffe is the height of all perfection, for Dorina it is “a beggar who came here thin and barefoot,” and now “fancies himself a ruler.”
The third and fourth acts are structured very similarly: Tartuffe, who finally appears, falls into the “mousetrap” twice, his essence becomes obvious. This saint has decided to seduce Orgon’s wife Elmira and acts completely shamelessly. For the first time, Orgon's son Damis hears his frank confessions to Elmira. But Orgon does not believe his revelations; he not only does not kick Tartuffe out, but, on the contrary, gives him his home. It was necessary to repeat this entire scene especially for Orgon so that he could see the light. This scene of the fourth act, in which Tartuffe again demands love from Elmira, and Orgon sits at the table and hears everything, is one of the most famous scenes in all of Moliere’s works.
Now Orgon understood the truth. But unexpectedly Madame Pernelle objects to him, who cannot believe in Tartuffe’s crime. 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 Fronde participants). 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.
The fifth act, in which Tartuffe, having thrown off his mask, threatens Orgon and his family with the greatest troubles, takes on tragic features, Comedy develops into tragicomedy. The basis of the tragicomic in Tartuffe is Orgon’s insight. As long as he blindly believed Tartuffe, he only caused laughter and condemnation. Could a man who decided to give his daughter in marriage to Tartuffe, although he knew that she loved Valera, evoke different feelings? But finally Orgon realized his mistake and repented of it. And now he begins to evoke pity and compassion as a person who has become the victim of a scoundrel. The drama of the situation is enhanced by the fact that the whole family is on the street with Orgon. 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 had been keeping an eye on this swindler for a long time, and as soon as Tartuffe’s activities became dangerous, a decree was immediately sent for his arrest. However, the completion of Tartuffe represents an ostensibly happy ending. Tartuffe is not a specific person, but a generalized image, a literary type, 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 shade of the work is not removed by its happy ending.
For centuries, Tartuffe remained the most popular comedy Moliere. This work was highly appreciated by Hugo and Balzac, Pushkin and Belinsky. The name Tartuffe became a common noun for a hypocrite.
The banning of Tartuffe in 1664 brought significant damage to Molière's troupe: the performance was supposed to be the main premiere of the year. The playwright is urgently writing a new comedy - “Don Juan”. Completed in 1664, it was delivered early the next year. If we remember that “Tartuffe” of 1664 was not yet that great “Tartuffe”, but a three-act play that had to be improved and polished, then it will become clear why “Don Juan”, which appeared later than the initial version of “Tartuffe”, is considered the first great comedy by Moliere.
The plot is taken from the play Spanish writer XVII century Tirso de Molina's "The Mischief of Seville, or the Stone Guest" (1630), where Don Juan (in French - Don Juan) first appeared. So we know this world literary type by the name given to the hero by Moliere. The French playwright greatly simplifies the plot of Tirso de Molina's play. He focuses on the confrontation between Don Juan and his servant Sganarelle.
The name Don Juan has become a synonym for a libertine who seduces many women and then abandons them. This property of Don Juan in Moliere’s comedy stems from his belonging to the aristocracy, to which everything is allowed and which does not want to feel responsible for anything.
Don Juan is an egoist, but he does not consider this bad, because egoism is completely consistent with the privileged position of an aristocrat in society. The portrait of an aristocrat is complemented by atheism and complete contempt for religion.
The aristocratic freethinking of Doi Juan is contrasted with the bourgeois freethinking of Sganarelle. Whose side is Moliere on? No one's. If Don Juan's free-thinking inspires sympathy, this feeling disappears when Doi Juan resorts to hypocrisy like Tartuffe. His opponent Sganarelle, who defends morality and religion, is cowardly, hypocritical, and loves money more than anything else.
Therefore, in the finale of the play, which also develops from a comedy into a tragicomedy, both heroes face a punishment commensurate with their characters: Don
Juan falls into hell, dragged there by the statue of the Commander he killed, and Sganarelle thinks that the owner, falling into hell, did not pay him. “My salary, my salary, my salary!” - the comedy ends with these sorrowful cries of Sganarelle.
The clergy immediately realized that it was no coincidence that Moliere had assigned such a nonentity as Sganarelle to defend religion in the play. The comedy was performed 15 times and was banned. It was published after the death of the playwright, and staged again in France only in 1841.
In comedy "Misanthrope"(1666) Moliere decided to explore another vice - misanthropy. However, he does not make the misanthropic Alceste the hero of the comedy negative character. On the contrary, he draws an honest, straightforward hero who wants to preserve his humanity. But the society in which he lives makes a terrible impression, “heinous injustice reigns everywhere.”
Moliere brings the main character of the comedy Alceste onto the stage immediately after the curtain rises, without any preparation. He is already nervous: “Please leave me alone!” (translated by T. L. Shchepkina-Kupernik), he says to the reasonable Filint and adds: “I was really friendly with you until now, / But, know, I don’t need such a friend anymore.” The reason for the breakup is that Alceste witnessed Philinte’s too warm reception of a man whom he barely knew, as he later admitted. Philinte tries to laugh it off (“...Although the guilt is heavy, / Let me not hang myself for now”), which provokes a rebuke from Alceste, who does not accept or understand humor at all: “How you become humorous at the wrong time!” Philint’s position: “Rotating in society, we are tributaries of decency, / Which are required by both morals and custom.” Alceste’s answer: “No! We must punish with a merciless hand / All the vileness of secular lies and such emptiness. / We must be people...” Philint’s position: “But there are cases when this truthfulness / Would appear funny or harmful to the world. / Sometimes - may your severity forgive me! - / We must hide what is deep in our hearts.” Alceste’s opinion: “Betrayal, betrayal, deception, flattery are everywhere, / Vile injustice reigns everywhere; / I’m furious, I don’t have the strength to control myself, / And I’d like to challenge the entire human race to battle!” As an example, Alceste cites a certain hypocrite with whom he has a lawsuit. Philint agrees with the destructive characterization of this man and that is why he invites Alceste to deal not with his criticism, but with the essence of the matter. But Alcest, while waiting for the court’s decision, does not want to do anything; he would gladly lose the case, if only to find confirmation of “the baseness and malice of people.” But why, valuing the human race so low, does he tolerate the shortcomings of the frivolous Selimena, does he really not notice them, Philint asks his friend. Alceste replies: “Oh no! My love knows no blindness. / All the shortcomings in her are clear to me without a doubt.<...>The fire of my love - I deeply believe in this - / Will cleanse her soul from the scum of vice.” Alceste came here to Celimene’s house to talk to her. Orontes, a admirer of Celimene, appears. He asks Alceste to become a friend, immoderately extolling his virtues. To this Alceste utters wonderful words about friendship:
“After all, friendship is a sacrament, and mystery is dearer to it; / She shouldn’t play so frivolously. / Union by choice - this is the expression of friendship; First - knowledge, then - rapprochement.” Orontes agrees to wait in friendship and asks Alceste for advice on whether he can present his last sonnet to the public. Alceste warns that he is too sincere as a critic, but this does not stop Orontes: he needs the truth. Philinte listens to his sonnet “Hope”: “I have never heard a more graceful verse anywhere” - and Alceste: “It is only good for throwing it away! /<...>An empty game of words, panache or fashion. / But, my God, is that what nature says?” - and reads poetry twice folk song, where love is spoken about simply, without embellishment. Orontes is offended, the argument almost leads to a duel, and only Philinte’s intervention defuses the situation. The prudent Filint laments: “You have made an enemy! Well, let's go science. / But it would be worthwhile to slightly praise the sonnet...”, Alceste’s answer: “Not a word more.”
Act two, like the first, begins without any preparation with a stormy explanation between Alceste and Celimene: “Do you want me to tell you the whole truth? / Madam, your temper has tormented my soul, / You torment me with such treatment. / We need to separate - I see with grief.” Alceste reproaches his beloved for frivolity. Selimene retorts: you can’t drive away fans with a stick. Alceste: “It’s not a stick that is needed here - completely different means: / Less softness, courtesy, coquetry<...>/ Meanwhile, you like these courtships! - and then Moliere puts into Alceste’s mouth words that a number of researchers consider as the embodiment of his personal experiences addressed to his wife Armande Bejart, who played the role of Celimene: “How you have to love you so as not to part with you! / ABOUT! If I could tear my heart out of your hands, / If I could save it from unbearable torment, / I would thank the heavens for that touchingly.<...>/ I love you for my sins.<...>/ My crazy passion is incomprehensible! / No one, madam, loved as much as I did.”
Selimena receives guests with whom she chats with many acquaintances. Her slander is brilliant. Alceste accuses the guests of encouraging this slander, while when they meet the people they ridicule, they throw themselves into their arms and assure them of friendship. Then Celimene gives a harsh description of Alceste: “Contradiction is his special gift. / Public opinion is terrible for him, / And agreeing with it is an outright crime. / He would have considered himself disgraced forever, / If he had not bravely gone against everyone!” The arriving gendarme has an order to escort Alceste to the department: criticism of the sonnet had an effect in such an unexpected form. But Alceste rejects all advice to soften his judgment: “Until the king himself forced me, / So that I praise and glorify such poems, / I will argue that his sonnet is bad / And the poet himself is worthy of a noose for it!”
Act III is given over to the depiction of secular mores: the Marquises Clitander and Acaetus, seeking Celimene’s favor, are ready to give in to each other if she prefers one of them; Selimene, who sarcastically characterizes her friend Arsinoe, depicts stormy joy at the occasion of her arrival, each tells the other all the nasty things that are said about them in the world, adding iodine to this screen of poison from herself. Alceste appears only in the finale. He hears from Arsinoe praise for his intelligence and other qualities that “the court should notice,” which she can contribute through her connections. But Alceste rejects this path: “I was not created by fate for life at court, / I am not inclined to the diplomatic game, - / I was born with a rebellious, rebellious soul, / And I will not succeed among the court servants. / I have one gift: I am sincere and courageous, / And I would never be able to play people”; a person who does not know how to hide his thoughts and feelings must abandon the intention of taking some place in the world, “But, having lost the hope of elevation, / We do not need to endure refusals and humiliation. / We never need to play fools, / We don’t need to praise mediocre rhymes, / We don’t need to endure whims from lovely ladies, / And we don’t need to endure empty marquises with wit!” Then Arsinoe goes over to Celimene and assures that she has precise evidence of her infidelity to Alceste. He, having condemned Arsino for slandering his friend, nevertheless wants to get acquainted with this evidence: “I would like one thing: let the light be shed. / To find out the whole truth - there are no other desires.”
In Act IV from Philinte's story, the scene in the office is restored, where the judges tried to force Alceste to change his mind about Orontes' sonnet. He stubbornly stood his ground: “He is an honest nobleman, there is no doubt about it, / He is brave, worthy, kind, but he is a bad poet;<...>/ I could only forgive him his poems, believe me, / If he wrote them under pain of cruel death.” Reconciliation was achieved only when Alceste agreed to utter a phrase in a presumptive manner: “I, sir, am very sorry that I judge so strictly, / Out of friendship for you, I would like from the bottom of my heart / To tell you that the poems are undeniably good!” Celimene's cousin Elianta, to whom Philinte tells this story, gives Alceste high praise for his sincerity and admits to his interlocutor that she is not indifferent to Alceste. Filint, in turn, confesses his love for Eliante. Moliere, thus, a year before the premiere of Racine's Andromache, builds a love chain similar to Racine's, where the heroes are endowed with unrequited love, each loves the one who loves the other. In The Misanthrope, Philinte loves Eliante, who loves Alceste, who loves Celimene, who loves no one. In Racine, such love leads to tragedy.
Elianta is ready to encourage Alcest's love for Celimene, hoping that Alcest himself will notice her feelings; Philinte is just as ready to wait for Eliante’s favor when she is free of feelings for Alceste; Selimena is not bothered by the lack of love. They will not worry for long, having not achieved what they wanted, Arsinoe, who fell in love with Alceste and Akaet, Clitander, who fell in love with Selimene, Orontes, whose shallow feelings complicate the love chain in “The Misanthrope,” does not react in any way to the vicissitudes of Eliant’s love. And only the intensity of Alceste’s feelings makes his situation close to tragic. He is not inclined to trust rumors. But Arsinoe gives him a letter from Celimene to Orontes, full of tender feelings. Convinced of Celimene's infidelity, Alceste rushes to Eliante with a marriage proposal, not hiding the fact that he is driven by jealousy and a desire to take revenge on Celimene. Selimena's appearance changes everything: she claims that she wrote this letter to a friend. Alceste’s critical mind tells him that this is just a trick, but he is inclined to believe because he is in love: “I am yours, and I want to follow to the end, / How you deceive a blind man in love.” This bifurcation of the hero, when one creature in him critically observes the other, is one of the examples that allows us to come to the conclusion: in The Misanthrope, Moliere is ahead of Racine in establishing the principle of psychologism in French literature.
In Act V, the intensity of Alceste's conflict with society reaches its highest development. Alceste lost the case in court, although his opponent was wrong and used the lowest methods to achieve his goal - and everyone knew it. Alceste wants to leave society and is only waiting for what Celimene will tell him: “I must, must know whether I am loved or not, / And her answer will decide my future life.” But by chance Alceste hears exactly the same question asked to Celimene by Orontes. She is at a loss, she does not want to lose any of the young people who are passionate about her. The appearance of Acastus and Clitander with letters from Celimene, in which she slanderes all her fans, including Alceste, leads to a scandal. Everyone leaves Celimene, except Alceste: he does not find the strength in himself to hate his beloved and explains this to Eliante and Philinte in verses that are so similar to the future tirades of Racine’s tragic heroes: “You see, I am a slave to my unhappy passion: / I am in the power of my criminal weakness ! / But this is not the end - and, to my shame, / In love, you see, I will go to the end. / We are called wise... What does this wisdom mean? / No, every heart hides human weakness...” He is ready to forgive Celimene everything, to justify infidelity with someone else’s influence, her youth, but he invites his beloved to share life with him outside of society, in the wilderness, in the desert: “Oh, if we love, Why do we need the whole world? Selimene is ready to become Alceste’s wife, but she would not like to leave society; such a future does not attract her. She doesn't have time to finish her sentence. Alceste understood everything before, now he is ripe for the decision: “Enough! I was cured at once: / You did it now with your refusal. / Since you cannot in the depths of your heart - / Just as I found everything in you, so you can find everything in me, / Farewell forever; like a heavy burden, / Freely, finally, I will throw off your chains!” Alceste decides to leave society: “Everyone has betrayed me and everyone is cruel to me; / I will leave the pool, where vices reign; / Perhaps there is such a corner in the world, / Where a person is free to cherish his honor” (translated by M. E. Levberg).
The image of Alceste is psychologically complex, which makes it difficult to interpret. Judging by the fact that The Misanthrope is written in verse, it was intended for great purposes, and not to solve the problems of the current repertoire of the Palais Royal. The playwright removed the original subtitle - “The Hypochondriac in Love”, which allows us to guess in what direction the idea developed at first and what the author abandoned in the end. Moliere did not explain his understanding of the image of Alceste. In the first edition of the comedy, he included “Letter on the Misanthrope” by his former enemy Donno de Wiese. From this review it emerged that the audience approved of Filint as a person who avoids extremes. “As for the Misanthrope, he must arouse in his fellows the desire to be spoiled.” It is believed that Moliere, by placing this review in the publication of the comedy, thereby identifies himself with him.
In the next century the situation changes. J.-J. Rousseau condemned Moliere for ridiculing Alceste: “Wherever the Misanthrope is ridiculous, he only fulfills the duty of a decent person” (“Letter to D’Alembert”).
Is Alceste really funny? This is how he is characterized by the characters of the comedy (the first is Philint: Act I, scene 1), but not by the situations created by the playwright. Thus, in the scene with Orontes’ sonnet, Orontes looks funny, not Alcestes (Orontes seeks Alcestes’ friendship, asks him to speak about the sonnet, he himself belittles the importance of the poem, citing the fact that he wrote it “in a few minutes,” etc.). The poems are frankly weak, so Philint’s praises turn out to be inappropriate and do him no credit. Criticism of the sonnet is not a trifle, judging by the consequences: the gendarme takes Alceste to the department, where the judges decide the issue of reconciliation of Orontes and Alceste. And in other cases, representatives show inadequacy secular society. Moliere, playing Alceste, emphasized the causticity and causticity rather than the comic nature of the character.
Is Alceste really a misanthrope? His statements about people are no more sharp than the attacks of Selimena, Arsinoe, other participants in the “school of slander”, Philinte, who says: “I agree that lies and depravity are everywhere, / That malice and self-interest reign everywhere around, / That only cunning leads now to luck, / That people should have been created differently.” The title of the comedy “The Misanthrope” is misleading: Alceste, capable of passionate love, is less of a misanthrope than Celimene, who loves no one. Alceste’s misanthropy always manifests itself in specific situations, i.e. has motives, and does not constitute his character, distinguishing this hero from other characters. It is characteristic that if the names of Tartuffe or Harpagon became French proper names, then the name Alceste is not, on the contrary, the proper name “misanthrope” replaced his personal name, like Rousseau, who wrote it with a capital letter, but it changed the meaning, becoming a symbol not of misanthropy, but of directness, honesty, sincerity.
Moliere develops the system of images and the plot of the comedy in such a way that it is not Alceste who is drawn to society, but society to him. What makes the beautiful and young Celimene, the sensible Eliante, the hypocritical Arsinoe seek his love, and the reasonable Philinte and the precise Orontes - his friendship? Alceste is not young and ugly, he is not rich, he has no connections, he is not known at court, he does not shine in salons, he is not involved in politics, science or any art. Obviously, there is something attractive about him that others don’t have. Elianta calls this trait: “Such sincerity is a special quality; / There is some kind of noble heroism in her. / This is a very rare trait for our days, / I would like to meet her more often.” Sincerity constitutes the character of Alceste (that fundamental quality that lies in all manifestations of his personality). Society wants to depersonalize Alceste, to make him like everyone else, but it also envies the amazing resilience of this man. There is a long tradition to believe that Moliere portrayed himself in the image of Alceste, and his wife Armande Bejart in the image of Celimene. But viewers of the premiere saw completely different prototypes in the characters of the comedy: Alceste - Duke of Montosier, Orontes - Duke of Saint-Aignan, Arsinoe - Duchess of Navay, etc. Moliere, judging by his messages to the king, dedications, and “Versailles Impromptu,” is more similar to Philint. This is confirmed by the surviving description of Moliere’s character, as he was remembered by his contemporaries: “As for his character, Moliere was kind, helpful, and generous.” Alceste is less a portrait of the playwright than his hidden ideal. Therefore, outwardly, there is a reason to ridicule Alceste in connection with his penchant for extremes, but in the structure of the work there is a hidden layer that exalts Alceste as a genuine tragic hero who chooses his own destiny. Therefore, in the finale, not only sad notes are heard, but also Alceste’s recognition of the liberation that came when he, like the heroes of Corneille, chose the proper path. In his work, Moliere brilliantly anticipated the ideas of the Enlightenment. Alceste - a man of the 18th century. In Moliere's time he was still too lonely, he was a rarity, and like any rarity he could evoke surprise, ridicule, sympathy, and admiration.
The plot of “The Misanthrope” is original, although the motif of misanthropy was not new in literature (the story of Timon of Athens, who lived in the 5th century BC, reflected in Lucian’s dialogue “Timon the Misanthrope”, in the biography of Mark Antony, included in “ Comparative biographies"Plutarch, in "Timon of Athens" by W. Shakespeare, etc.). The theme of sincerity is undoubtedly connected with the theme of hypocrisy in Tartuffe, for which Moliere fought to lift the ban during the years of creating The Misanthrope.
For Boileau, Moliere was primarily the author of The Misanthrope. Voltaire also highly appreciated this work. Rousseau and Mercy criticized the playwright for mocking Alceste. At the beginning of the French Revolution, Fabre d'Eglantine created the comedy Moliere's Philint, or the Continuation of the Misanthrope (1790). Alceste in it was portrayed as a real revolutionary, and Philinte as a hypocrite like Tartuffe. The image of Goethe's Alceste and romance was highly valued. There is reason to talk about the closeness of the image of Alceste and the image of Chatsky from Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.”
The image of the Misanthrope is one of greatest creatures human genius, he stands on a par with Hamlet, Don Quixote, Faust. "The Misanthrope" is the most striking example of "high comedy". This work is perfect in form. Moliere worked on it more than on any other play of his. This is his most beloved work; it has lyricism, testifying to the closeness of the image of Alceste to its creator.
Soon after The Misanthrope, Moliere, who continues to fight for Tartuffe, short term writes a comedy in prose "Stingy"(1668). And again a creative victory, associated primarily with the image of the main character. This is Harpagon, the father of Cleanthes and Eliza, who is in love with Mariana. Moliere transfers the story told by the ancient Roman playwright Plautus to contemporary Paris. Harpagon lives in his own house, he is rich, but stingy. Stinginess, having reached highest limit, crowds out all other qualities of the character’s personality and becomes his character. Stinginess turns Harpagon into a real predator, which is reflected in his name, formed by Moliere from the Latin harpago- “harpoon” (the name of special anchors used to pull up enemy ships before a boarding battle during naval battles, figurative meaning “grabber”).
The comic in “The Miser” acquires not so much a carnival, but rather a satirical character, which makes the comedy the pinnacle of Molière’s satire (along with “Tartuffe”). In the image of Harpagon, the classicist approach to character, in which diversity gives way to unity, and the individual to the generalized-typical, is reflected with particular clarity. Comparing the heroes of Shakespeare and Moliere, A. S. Pushkin wrote: “The faces created by Shakespeare are not, like Moliere’s, types of such and such a passion, such and such a vice, but living beings, filled with many passions, many vices; circumstances develop before the viewer their diverse and multifaceted characters. Molière is stingy, and that’s all...” (“Table-Talk”). However, Moliere's approach to depicting character gives a very great artistic effect. His characters are so significant that their names become household names. The name Harpagon also became a common noun to denote the passion for hoarding and stinginess (the first known case of such use dates back to 1721).
Moliere's last great comedy - "A tradesman among the nobility"(1670), it was written in the genre of “comedy-ballet”: on the instructions of the king, it was necessary to include dances that would contain a mockery of Turkish ceremonies. It was necessary to collaborate with the famous composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), a native of Italy, a wonderful musician, who was connected with Moliere by previous work on comedies and ballets and at the same time by mutual enmity. Moliere skillfully introduced dance scenes into the plot of the comedy, maintaining the unity of its structure.
The general law of this construction is that the comedy of character appears against the background of the comedy of manners. The bearers of morals are all the heroes of the comedy with the exception of the main one actor- Jourdain. The sphere of morals is the customs, traditions, habits of society. Characters can express this sphere only in the aggregate (such as Jourdain’s wife and daughter, his servants, teachers, aristocrats Dorant and Dorimena, who want to profit from the wealth of Jourdain’s bourgeoisie). They are endowed characteristic features, but not character. These features, even comically sharpened, nevertheless do not violate the verisimilitude.
Jourdain, unlike the characters in the comedy of manners, acts as a comedic character. The peculiarity of Moliere's character is that the tendency that exists in reality is brought to such a degree of concentration that the hero breaks out of the framework of its natural, “reasonable” order. Such are Don Juan, Alceste, Harpagon, Tartuffe, Orgon - the hero of the highest honesty and dishonesty, martyrs of noble passions and fools.
This is Jourdain, a bourgeois who decided to become a nobleman. For forty years he lived in his own world, did not know any contradictions. This world was harmonious because everything in it was in its place. Jourdain was quite smart, bourgeois-sharp. The desire to enter the world of the nobles, which has become the character of the bourgeois Jourdain, destroys the harmonious family order. Jourdain becomes a tyrant, a tyrant who prevents Cleonte from marrying Lucille, Jourdain’s daughter, who loves him, only because he is not a nobleman. And at the same time, he looks more and more like a naive child who is easy to deceive.
Jourdain evokes both cheerful laughter and satirical, condemning laughter (let us recall that this distinction between types of laughter was deeply substantiated by M. M. Bakhtin, including with reference to the works of Moliere).
Through the mouth of Cleont, the idea of the play is stated: “People without a twinge of conscience assign to themselves the title of nobility - this kind of theft, apparently, has become a custom. But I admit, I am more scrupulous about this. I believe that every deception casts a shadow on a decent person. To be ashamed of those from whom heaven destined you to be born, to shine in society with a fictitious title, to pretend to be something other than what you really are - this, in my opinion, is a sign of spiritual baseness.”
But this idea turns out to be in conflict with the further development of the comedy plot. The noble Cleont at the end of the play, in order to obtain Jourdain's permission to marry Lucille, pretends to be the son of the Turkish Sultan, and the honest Madame Jourdain and Lucille help him in this deception. The deception was a success, but ultimately Jourdain wins, because he forced honest people, his relatives and servants, contrary to their honesty and decency, to deceive. Under the influence of the Jourdains, the world is changing. This is a world of bourgeois narrow-mindedness, a world where money rules.
Moliere raised highest level poetic and prosaic language of comedy, he brilliantly mastered comedic techniques and composition. His achievements are especially significant in the creation of comedic characters, in which extreme generality is complemented by life-like authenticity. The names of many of Moliere's characters have become household names.
He is one of the most popular playwrights in the world: on the stage of the Parisian Comedie Française theater alone, over three hundred years, his comedies have been shown more than thirty thousand times. Moliere had a huge influence on the subsequent development of the world artistic culture. Moliere was completely mastered by Russian culture. L. N. Tolstoy said beautifully about him: “Moliere is perhaps the most popular, and therefore a wonderful artist of the new art.”
Assessing comedy as a genre, Moliere states that it is not only equal to tragedy, but even superior to it, because it “makes honest people laugh” and thereby “contributes to the eradication of vices.” The task of comedy is to be a mirror of society, to depict the shortcomings of people of their time. The criterion for the artistry of comedy is the truth of reality. Moliere's comedies can be divided into two types, different in artistic structure, the nature of the comedy, the intrigue and content in general. The first group includes domestic comedies, with a farcical plot, one-act or three-act, written in prose. Their comedy is a comedy of situations (“Funny primps”, 1659 cuckold”, 1660; “Marriage “The Reluctant Doctor”). Another group is “high comedies”. The comedy of “high comedy” is a comedy of character, an intellectual comedy (“Tartuffe”, “Don Juan”, “The Misanthrope”, “ Scientists women" and etc.). High comedy meets classic rules: five-act structure, poetic form, unity of time, place and action. He was the first to successfully combine the traditions of medieval farce and Italian comedy traditions. Smart characters with bright personalities appeared ("School for Wives", "Tartuffe", "Don Juan", "Misanthrope", "The Miser", "Learned Women"). "Learned Women" (or "Scientific Ladies") is still considered an example of the classic comedy genre. For the author’s contemporaries it was savagery to openly show the intelligence, cunning and cunning of a woman.
"Don Juan".
Don Juan, or the Stone Guest (1665) was written extremely quickly to improve the affairs of the theater after the banning of Tartuffe. Moliere turned to an unusually popular theme, first developed in Spain, about the libertine who knows no barriers in his pursuit of pleasure. For the first time, Tirso de Molina wrote about Don Juan, using folk sources, the Seville chronicles about Don Juan Tenorio, a libertine who kidnapped the daughter of Commander Gonzalo de Ulloa, killed him and desecrated his tombstone. Moliere treated this well-known theme in a completely original way, abandoning the religious and moral interpretation of the image of the main character. His Don Juan is ordinary socialite, and the events that happen to him are determined by the properties of his nature, everyday traditions, and social relationships. Moliere's Don Juan, whom his servant Sganarelle defines from the very beginning of the play as “the greatest of all villains that the earth has ever bore, a monster, a dog, a devil, a Turk, a heretic” (I, 1), is a young daredevil, a rake, who does not see any barriers to the manifestation of his vicious personality: he lives by the principle “everything is allowed.” Creating his Don Juan, Moliere denounced not debauchery in general, but the immorality inherent in the French aristocrat of the 17th century; Moliere knew this breed of people well and therefore depicted his hero very reliably.
Like all the secular dandies of his time, Don Juan lives in debt, borrowing money from the “black bone” he despises - the bourgeois Dimanche, whom he manages to charm with his courtesy, and then send him out the door without paying the debt. Don Juan freed himself from all moral responsibility. He seduces women, destroys other people's families, cynically strives to corrupt everyone with whom he deals: simple-minded peasant girls, each of whom he promises to marry, a beggar to whom he offers gold for blasphemy, Sganarelle, to whom he sets a clear example of how to treat the creditor Dimanche... Father. Don Juan's Don Luis tries to reason with his son.
Grace, wit, courage, beauty - these are also traits of Don Juan, who knows how to charm not only women. Sganarelle, a multi-valued figure (he is both simple-minded and insightfully intelligent), condemns his master, although he often admires him. Don Juan is smart, he thinks broadly; he is a universal skeptic who laughs at everything - love, medicine, and religion. Don Juan is a philosopher, a freethinker.
The main thing for Don Juan, a convinced woman lover, is the desire for pleasure. Not wanting to think about the misadventures that await him, he admits: “I cannot love once, every new object fascinates me... One of the attractive features of Don Juan throughout most of the play remains his sincerity. He is not a prude, he does not try to portray himself as better than he is, and in general he values little the opinions of others. In the scene with the beggar (III, 2), having mocked him to his heart’s content, he still gives him a gold “not for Christ’s sake, but out of love for mankind.” However, in the fifth act, a dramatic change occurs to him: Don Juan becomes a hypocrite. The seasoned Sganarelle exclaims in horror: “What a man, what a man!” The pretense, the mask of piety that Don Juan puts on, is nothing more than a profitable tactic; she allows him to extricate himself from a seemingly hopeless situations; make peace with his father, on whom he financially depends, and safely avoid a duel with the brother of Elvira, whom he abandoned. Like many in his social circle, he only assumed the appearance of a decent person. In his own words, hypocrisy has become a “fashionable, privileged vice” that covers up any sins, and fashionable vices are regarded as virtues. Continuing the theme raised in Tartuffe, Moliere shows the universal nature of hypocrisy, widespread in different classes and officially encouraged. The French aristocracy was also involved in it.
In creating Don Juan, Moliere followed not only the ancient Spanish plot, but also the methods of constructing Spanish comedy with its alternation of tragic and comic scenes, rejection of the unity of time and place, violation of the unity language style(the speech of the characters here is more individualized than in any other play by Moliere). The character structure of the main character also turns out to be more complex. And yet, despite these partial deviations from the strict canons of the poetics of classicism, Don Juan remains on the whole a classicist comedy, the main purpose of which is the fight against human vices, the formulation of moral and social problems, and the depiction of generalized, typified characters.
Composition
In the mid-1660s, Moliere created his best comedies, in which he criticized the vices of the clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie. The first of them was “Tartuffe, or the Deceiver” (edition 1664, 1667 and 1669). The play was to be shown during the grandiose court festival “The Amusements of the Enchanted Island”, which took place in May 1664 at Versailles. However, the play upset the holiday. A real conspiracy arose against Moliere, led by Queen Mother Anne of Austria. Moliere was accused of insulting religion and the church, demanding punishment for this. Performances of the play were stopped.
Moliere made an attempt to stage the play in a new edition. In the first edition of 1664, Tartuffe was a clergyman. The wealthy Parisian bourgeois Orgon, into whose house this rogue plays the saint, enters, does not yet have a daughter - the priest Tartuffe could not marry her. Tartuffe deftly gets out of a difficult situation, despite the accusations of his son Orgon, who caught him courting his stepmother Elmira. The triumph of Tartuffe unequivocally testified to the danger of hypocrisy.
In the second edition (1667; like the first, it has not reached us) Moliere expanded the play, added two more acts to the existing three, where he depicted the connections of the hypocrite Tartuffe with the court, the court and the police. Tartuffe was named Panjulf and turned into a socialite, intending to marry Orgon's daughter Marianne. The comedy, called “The Deceiver,” ended with the exposure of Panyulf and the glorification of the king. In the latest edition that has come down to us (1669), the hypocrite was again called Tartuffe, and the entire play was called “Tartuffe, or the Deceiver.”
The king knew about Moliere's play and approved his plan. Fighting for “Tartuffe,” Moliere, in his first “Petition” to the king, defended comedy, defended himself from accusations of godlessness, and spoke about the social role of the satirical writer. The king did not lift the ban on the play, but did not listen to the advice of rabid saints “to burn not only the book, but also its author, a demon, an atheist and a libertine, who wrote a devilish play full of abomination, in which he mocks the church and religion, the sacred functions” (“The Greatest King of the World,” pamphlet by Sorbonne doctor Pierre Roullet, 1664).
Permission to stage the play in its second edition was given by the king orally, in a hurry, upon leaving for the army. Immediately after the premiere, the comedy was again banned by the President of Parliament (the highest judicial institution), Lamoignon, and the Parisian Archbishop Perefix issued a message in which he forbade all parishioners and clergy from “presenting, reading or listening to a dangerous play” under pain of excommunication. Moliere sent the second “Petition” to the king’s headquarters, in which he stated that he would stop writing completely if the king did not come to his defense. The king promised to sort it out. Meanwhile, the comedy is read in private homes, distributed in manuscript, and performed in private home performances (for example, in the palace of the Prince of Condé in Chantilly). In 1666 the Queen Mother died and this gave Louis XIV the opportunity to promise Moliere a speedy permission to stage the production. The year 1668 arrived, the year of the so-called “ecclesiastical peace” between orthodox Catholicism and Jansenism, which promoted a certain tolerance in religious matters. It was then that the production of Tartuffe was allowed. On February 9, 1669, the performance of the play was a huge success.
What caused such violent attacks on Tartuffe? Moliere had long been attracted to the theme of hypocrisy, which he observed everywhere in public life. In this comedy, Moliere turned to the most common type of hypocrisy at that time - religious - and wrote it based on his observations of the activities of a secret religious society - the “Society of the Holy Sacrament”, which was patronized by Anne of Austria and of which both Lamoignon and Perefix were members. and the princes of the church, and the nobles, and the bourgeoisie. The king did not give sanction to the open activities of this ramified organization, which had existed for more than 30 years; the activities of the society were surrounded by the greatest mystery. Acting under the motto “Suppress all evil, promote all good,” members of the society set their main task to fight freethinking and godlessness. Having access to private homes, they essentially performed the functions of a secret police, conducting covert surveillance of those they suspected, collecting facts supposedly proving their guilt, and on this basis handing over alleged criminals to the authorities. Members of the society preached severity and asceticism in morals, had a negative attitude towards all kinds of secular entertainment and theater, and pursued a passion for fashion. Moliere observed how members of the “Society of the Holy Sacrament” insinuatingly and skillfully infiltrated other people’s families, how they subjugated people, completely taking possession of their conscience and their will. This suggested the plot of the play, and Tartuffe’s character was formed from typical features, inherent in members of the “Society of the Holy Gifts”.
Like them, Tartuffe is associated with the court, with the police, and is patronized at court. He hides his true appearance, posing as an impoverished nobleman looking for food on the church porch. He penetrates into Orgon’s family because in this house, after the owner’s marriage to young Elmira, instead of the former piety, free morals, fun reign, and critical speeches are heard. In addition, Orgon's friend Argas, a political exile, participant in the Parliamentary Fronde (1649), left him incriminating documents, which are stored in a box. Such a family could well seem suspicious to the “Society”, and surveillance was established on such families.
Tartuffe is not the embodiment of hypocrisy as a universal human vice, it is a socially generalized type. It is not for nothing that he is not at all alone in the comedy: his servant Laurent, the bailiff Loyal, and the old woman - Orgon's mother Madame Pernel - are hypocritical. They all cover up their unsightly actions with pious speeches and vigilantly monitor the behavior of others. Tartuffe’s characteristic appearance is created by his imaginary holiness and humility: “He prayed near me in church every day, // Kneeling in an outburst of piety. // He attracted everyone's attention" (I, 6). Tartuffe is not without external attractiveness; he has courteous, insinuating manners, which hide prudence, energy, an ambitious thirst for power, and the ability to take revenge. He settled well in Orgon's house, where the owner not only satisfies his slightest whims, but is also ready to give him his daughter Marianne, a rich heiress, as his wife. Orgon confides all secrets to him, including entrusting him with the storage of the treasured box with incriminating documents. Tartuffe succeeds because he is a subtle psychologist; playing on the fear of the gullible Orgon, he forces the latter to reveal any secrets to him. Tartuffe covers up his insidious plans with religious arguments. He is well aware of his strength, and therefore does not restrain his vicious desires. He does not love Marianne, she is only an advantageous bride for him, he is carried away by the beautiful Elmira, whom Tartuffe is trying to seduce. His casuistic reasoning that betrayal is not a sin if no one knows about it outrages Elmira. Damis, Orgon's son, a witness to the secret meeting, wants to expose the scoundrel, but he, having taken a pose of self-flagellation and repentance for supposedly imperfect sins, again makes Orgon his defender. When, after the second date, Tartuffe falls into a trap and Orgon kicks him out of the house, he begins to take revenge, fully revealing his vicious, corrupt and selfish nature.
But Molière not only exposes hypocrisy. In Tartuffe he puts important question: Why did Orgon allow himself to be deceived like that? This already middle-aged man, clearly not stupid, with a strong disposition and strong will, succumbed to the widespread fashion for piety. Orgon believed in Tartuffe’s piety and “holiness” and sees him as his spiritual mentor. However, he becomes a pawn in the hands of Tartuffe, who shamelessly declares that Orgon would rather believe him “than his own eyes” (IV, 5). The reason for this is the inertia of Orgon’s consciousness, brought up in submission to authority. This inertia does not give him the opportunity to critically comprehend the phenomena of life and evaluate the people around him. If Orgon nevertheless acquires a sensible view of the world after Tartuffe’s exposure, then his mother, the old woman Pernelle, a stupidly pious supporter of inert patriarchal views, never saw Tartuffe’s true face.
The younger generation, represented in the comedy, which immediately discerned Tartuffe’s true face, is united by the maid Dorina, who has long and faithfully served in Orgon’s house and enjoys love and respect here. Her wisdom, common sense, and insight help to find the most suitable means to combat the cunning rogue.
The comedy Tartuffe had great social significance. In it, Moliere depicted not private family relationships, and the most harmful social vice is hypocrisy. In the Preface to Tartuffe, an important theoretical document, Moliere explains the meaning of his play. He affirms the social purpose of comedy, states that “the task of comedy is to scourge vices, and there should be no exceptions here. From a state point of view, the vice of hypocrisy is one of the most dangerous in its consequences. Theater has the ability to counteract vice.” It was hypocrisy, according to Moliere’s definition, the main state vice of France of his time, that became the object of his satire. In a comedy that evokes laughter and fear, Moliere painted a profound picture of what was happening in France. Hypocrites like Tartuffe, despots, informers and avengers, dominate the country with impunity and commit genuine atrocities; lawlessness and violence are the results of their activities. Moliere painted a picture that should have alerted those who ruled the country. And although the ideal king at the end of the play acts justly (which was explained by Moliere’s naive faith in a just and reasonable monarch), the social situation outlined by Moliere seems threatening.
Moliere the artist, when creating Tartuffe, used a wide variety of means: here you can find elements of farce (Orgon hides under the table), comedy of intrigue (the story of the box with documents), comedy of manners (scenes in the house of a rich bourgeois), comedy of characters (dependence of development actions from the character of the hero). At the same time, Moliere's work is a typically classicist comedy. All the “rules” are strictly observed in it: it is designed not only to entertain, but also to instruct the viewer. In the “Preface” to “Tartuffe” it is said: “You can’t catch people’s attention better than by depicting their shortcomings. They listen to reproaches indifferently, but cannot bear ridicule. Comedy reproaches people for their shortcomings in pleasant teachings.”
During the years of struggle for Tartuffe, Moliere created his most significant satirical and oppositional comedies.
He considered himself an actor, not a playwright.
He wrote the play “The Misanthrope” and the French Academy, which could not stand him, was so delighted that they offered him to become an academician and receive the title of immortal. But this is conditional. That he will stop going on stage as an actor. Moliere refused. After his death, the academicians erected a monument to him and wrote in Latin: his glory is boundless for the fullness of our glory we lack him.
Moliere highly valued Corneille's plays. I thought that tragedy should be staged in the theater. And he considered himself a tragic actor. he was a very educated man. Graduated from Clermont College. He translated Lucretius from Latin. He was not a buffoon. By outward appearances, he was not a comic actor. he really had all the qualities of a tragic actor - a hero. Only his breathing was weak. It wasn't enough for a full stanza. He took theater seriously.
Moliere borrowed all the plots and they were not the main ones for him. It is impossible to base the plot on its dramaturgy. The main thing there is the interaction of characters, not the plot.
He wrote “Don Juan” at the request of the actors in 3 months. That's why it is written in prose. There was no time to rhyme it. When you read Moliere, you need to understand what role Moliere himself played. Because he was playing main role. He wrote all the roles for the actors, taking into account their individual characteristics. When he joined the troupe Lagrange , who kept the famous register. He began to write heroic roles for him and a Don Juan role for him. It is difficult to stage Molière, because when writing the play he took into account the psychophysiological capabilities of the actors in his troupe. This is tough material. His actors were golden. He quarreled with Racine over an actress (Marquise Teresa Duparc), whom Racine lured to him with the promise of writing the role of Andromache for her.
Moliere is the creator of high comedy.
High comedy - comedy without a positive hero(School for Wives, Tartuffe, Don Juan, The Miser, The Misanthrope). There is no need to look for positive heroes from him there.
A tradesman in the nobility is not high comedy.
But he also has farces.
High comedy addresses the mechanisms that give rise to vices in humans.
Main character - Orgone (played by Molière)
Tartuffe appears in act 3.
Everyone argues about it and the viewer must take some point of view.
Orgon is not an idiot, but why did he bring Tartuffe into the house and trust him so much? Orgon is not young (about 50), and his second wife Elmira is almost the same age as his children. He must solve the problem of the soul for himself. How to combine spiritual and social life with a young wife. For the 17th century, this was the main reason why the play was closed. But the king did not close this play. All of Moliere's appeals to the king were due to the fact that he did not know the true reason why the play was closed. And they closed it because of Anna, the Austrian mother of the king. And the king could not influence the mother’s decision.
She died in 69, and in 70 the play was immediately performed. What was the problem? In the question of what is grace and what is a secular person. Argon meets Tartuffe in a noble dress in the church, who brings him holy water. Orgon had a great desire to find a person who would combine these two qualities and it seemed to him that Tartuffe such a person. He takes him into the house and seems to go crazy. Everything in the house went upside down. Moliere turns to a precise psychological mechanism. When a person wants to be ideal, he tries to bring the ideal closer to himself physically. He begins not to break himself, but to bring the ideal closer to himself.
Tartuffe doesn't deceive anyone anywhere. He behaves simply arrogantly. Everyone understands. What is he an idiot except Madame Pernelle and Orgon . Dorina - housemaid Mariana is not a positive hero in this play. He behaves impudently. Mocking Argon. Cleant - Brother Elmira , brother-in-law of Orgon
Orgon gives Tartuffe everything. He wants to get as close to his idol as possible. Do not make yourself an idol. This is about psychological unfreedom. Super Christian play.
If a person lives by some idea, then no force can convince him. Orgon gives his daughter in marriage. He curses his son and throws him out of the house. Gives away his property. He gave someone else's box to a friend. Elmira was the only one who could dissuade him. And not in word, but in deed.
In order to perform this play at the Molière Theater they used a fringed tablecloth and a royal decree. the actor's existence there redeemed everything. How accurate is the theater?
The scene of revelation when Orgon is under the table. Lasts a long time. And when he gets out, he experiences a catastrophe. This is a sign of high comedy. The hero of high comedy experiences a real tragedy. He's here now. Like Othello, who realized that he had strangled Desdemona in vain. And when the main character suffers, the viewer laughs furiously. This is a paradoxical move. In every play Moliere has such a scene.
The more you suffer Harpagon in The Miser (the role of Molière) whose box is stolen, the funnier it is for the viewer. He shouts - police! Arrest me! Cut off my hand! Why are you laughing? He says to the viewer. Maybe you stole my wallet? He asks the nobles sitting on the stage. The gallery laughs. Or maybe there is a thief among you? He turns to the gallery. And the audience laughs more and more. And when they’ve already laughed it off. After some time they should understand. That Harpagon is them.
Textbooks write nonsense about Tartuffe regarding the ending. When a guard comes with the king’s decree, they write that Moliere couldn’t stand it and made concessions to the king in order to get the play through... it’s not true!
In France, the king is the pinnacle of the spiritual world. This is the embodiment of reason and ideas. Through his efforts, Orgon plunged nightmare and destruction into the life of his family. And if you end up with Orgon being kicked out of the house, then what is that play about? About the fact that he's just a fool and that's all. But this is not a subject for conversation. There is no ending. A guard with a decree appears as a certain function (a god on a machine), a certain force that is able to restore order in Orgon’s house. He is forgiven, his house and box are returned to him, and the tartuffe goes to prison. You can put your house in order, but you can’t put your head in order. Maybe he will bring a new Tartuffe into the house?.. and we understand that the play reveals the psychological mechanism of inventing an ideal, getting closer to this ideal, in the absence of the opportunity for this person to really change. The man is funny. As soon as a person begins to look for support in some idea, he turns into Orgone. This play is not going well for us.
In France, since the 17th century, there was a secret conspiratorial society (the society of secret communion or the society of the holy gifts), headed by Anna of Austria, which served as the morality police. it was the third political force in the state. Cardinal Richelieu knew and fought against this society and this was the basis of their conflict with the queen.
At this time, the Jesuit order began to actively operate. Who know how to combine secular and spiritual life. Salon abbots appear (Aramis is like that). They made religion attractive to the secular population. And the same Jesuits infiltrated homes and took possession of property. Because an order for something had to exist. And the play Tartuffe was written at the personal request of the king. In Molière's troupe there was a farceur actor who played farces by Grovenet du Parc (?). and the first edition was a farce. It ended with Tartuffe taking everything away and driving Orgon out. Tartuffe was played for the opening of Versailles. And in the middle of Act 1, the queen stood up and left, as soon as it became clear who Tartuffe was. the play was closed. Although she walked freely in manuscripts and was played in private houses. But Molière’s troupe could not do this. Nucius arrived from Rome and Moliere asked him why he was forbidden to play it? He said, I don’t understand. Normal play. Here in Italy they write worse. Then the performer of the role of Tartuffe dies and Moliere rewrites the play. Tartuffe becomes a nobleman with a more complex character. The play is changing before our eyes. Then the war with the Netherlands began, the king leaves there and Moliere writes an appeal to the chairman of the Paris parliament, not knowing what it is right hand Anne of Austria in this order. and the play is of course banned again
The Jansenists and the Jesuits started a dispute about grace. As a result, the king reconciled them all and they played the play Tartuffe. The Jansenists thought that Tartuffe was a Jesuit. And the Jesuits say that he is a Jansenist.