In what year was Moliere born? The main dates of the life and work of Moliere. J. B. Moliere: biography. Origin and early years

27.09.2019

In 1622, a boy was born into the Poquelin family. Exact date His birth is unknown, but in the church books there is an entry dated January 15, reporting his baptism under the name Jean-Baptiste. The child's parents, Jean and Marie, got married in April of the previous year. They were good Catholics, and therefore over the next three years Jean-Baptiste had two brothers - Louis and Jean, as well as a sister Marie. It must be said that the Poquelin family was not an easy one - Jean-Baptiste's grandfather held the position of first court upholsterer and valet to the king. When his grandfather died in 1626, his position and title was inherited by Jean-Baptiste's uncle, Nicolas. But five years later, Nikola sold this position to the father of the future comedian.

In 1632, Marie Poquelin died, and Moliere's father remarried, Catherine Fleurette. From this marriage a girl was born, and almost simultaneously Jean-Baptiste was assigned to Clermont College. At fifteen years old, a boy following family tradition, becomes a member of the upholstery shop without interrupting his studies at college. Over the next three years he studied law and in 1640 became a lawyer. But he was not attracted to jurisprudence at all.

A young lawyer plunges headlong into social life and turns into a regular at the house of Councilor Lhuillier. It was here that he met such outstanding people as Bernier, Gassendi and Cyrano de Bergerac, who would become his true friend. Young Poquelin absorbs Pierre Gassendi's philosophy of joy and attends all his lectures. According to the philosopher's theory, the world was created not by the mind of God, but by self-creating matter, and is obliged to serve the joys of man. Such thoughts fascinated Poquelin, and under their influence he made his first literary translation - it was Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of Things.”

On January 6, 1643, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin took a step that surprised everyone - he categorically refused his inherited position as an upholsterer at the royal court and gave the position to his brother - and absolutely free of charge. His career as a lawyer also ended. The first step towards a new life was moving to a rented apartment in the Maare quarter. Not far from this apartment lived the Bejar family of actors. On June 30, 1643, Bejart, Jean-Baptiste and five other actors signed a contract to found the Brilliant Theater. The theater, on which its founders pinned a lot of hopes, opened on January 1, 1644 - and a year later it went completely bankrupt. However, this enterprise gave the world a name adopted by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin as a pseudonym - Molière. Since he was the director of the theater, after bankruptcy he spent several days in a debtor's prison in Chatelet.

Having been freed, Moliere leaves for the province, and several actors from the bankrupt theater go with him. They all joined Dufresne's troupe, which was under the patronage of the Duke de Epernon. For several years, Moliere moved with a traveling troupe from city to city, and in 1650, when the Duke refused to support the artists, Moliere led the troupe. Two years later, the premiere of the comedy “Naughty or Everything Is Out of Place” took place - its author was Moliere himself. After watching the comedy, Prince Conti showed his favor to the troupe, and later the comedian would become his secretary.

The French theater of those times mainly staged adaptations of medieval farces, and therefore Moliere’s meeting in Lyon in 1655 with Italian artists was, one might say, significant. The Italian mask theater interested him very much - both as a comedian, and as an actor, and as a director. The main thing on the stage were masks, among which the four main ones stood out - Harlequin (a rogue and a fool), Brighella (a resourceful and evil peasant), the Doctor and Pantalone (a stingy merchant). Actually, the “commedia dell’arte” was a theater of improvisation. A text was strung onto a flexible script plan, which the actor practically created himself during the game. Moliere enthusiastically began sketching out roles, plots and adapting “del arte” to French life. In the late work of the great comedian, masked characters are quite recognizable, and perhaps it was they who made his plays close and understandable to the people.

The fame of the troupe of talented actors grows, and they begin to tour major cities such as Grenoble, Lyon and Rouen. In 1658, the troupe decided to perform in Paris. Moliere goes to the capital and literally seeks the patronage of Monsieur Philippe of Orleans, the king's brother. The thrifty Madeleine Bejart, who by that time had saved a sufficient amount, rented a hall for performances in Paris for a whole year and a half. In the autumn of the same year, Moliere's troupe plays at the Louvre for the courtiers and the king himself. The tragedy “Nycomède” by Corneille was performed first. This choice turned out to be unsuccessful, but Moliere’s “Doctor in Love” not only corrected the situation, but caused a storm of applause. After watching the comedy, Louis XIV ordered that a hall in the Petit-Bourbon Palace be given to Moliere for the theater.

The second success among Molière’s plays was the premiere of “Funny Primroses” in Paris (November 18, 1659). It is curious that in the documents of Peter the Great, sheets were discovered on which the first Russian emperor translated this comedy into Russian with his own hand.

Moliere did not bother himself with inventing names for his characters and often used either the real names of the actors in his troupe or symbolic names. For example, in “Funny Pretentious Women,” the name of one of the characters, Mascarille, is derived from “mask.” But classicism in Molière’s dramaturgy was quickly replaced by the creation of new genres. Before moving to Paris, Moliere composed plays of a more entertaining nature. However, a change in the audience prompted the author to use more sophisticated techniques, and accordingly, the tasks also changed. Moliere's plays become revealing and directly show the audience themselves - without any condescension. Moliere took a fair amount of risks, creating images in which aristocrats recognized themselves. The plays begin to castigate hypocrisy, arrogance, and stupidity in a parodic style, and their author has certainly reached unimaginable heights in depicting these vices.

However, Moliere was lucky - his risky creations came in handy for Louis XIV. The meaning of the plays resonated perfectly with the tasks of the Sun King, who was in a hurry to put an end to opposition in parliament and turn parliamentarians into obedient courtiers. Since 1660, Moliere's troupe has received a full royal pension and has been working at the Palais Royal. At the same time, Moliere decided to arrange his personal life and married Armande Bejart, but the twenty years difference played a cruel joke - the marriage was not very successful. But the marriage of Moliere, as, indeed, of almost anyone famous person, gave rise to a lot of rumors. It was even claimed that Armande was not a sister, but the daughter of Moliere’s stage friend Madeleine. Note that biographers cannot refute this gossip to this day.

But it wasn’t only gossip that darkened the comedian’s life at that time. Serious attacks begin on him, they try to tarnish his reputation in a variety of ways. Moliere was accused of violating literally all moral and aesthetic laws, but the comedian brilliantly responded to all accusations with his plays. This happens in “Criticism of “A Lesson for Wives””, and in the magnificent “Versailles Impromptu”, and in many other magnificent plays. Moliere's characters speak openly, and in their judgments follow common sense, and not moral prejudices. Perhaps the Moliere Theater would have been closed, but this sad event was prevented from happening by the constant support of the young king. The favor of Louis XIV was so great that the comedian was even invited to stage the brilliant May Day at Versailles in 1664.

At the same time, Moliere wrote the comedy “The Annoying Ones” and the first three acts of “Tartuffe.” However, “Tartuffe” aroused the anger of the Parisian priests, and at their request the play still had to be banned. The saints generally suggested sending Molière to the stake, but, fortunately, things didn’t come to that. It must be said that behind the attack on the playwright there was an exceptionally powerful force - the Society of the Holy Sacrament, under the patronage of the Queen Mother. Even the king could not push “Tartuffe” onto the stage, and for the first time a much softened version called “The Deceiver” was shown in 1667 - after the death of Anne of Austria. Although the main character of the play wore a secular camisole instead of a monk's robe, the very next day a Parisian court ruled to ban the production. It was only in 1669 that Tartuffe was performed as we know it now. However, attempts to ban the play did not stop, which is the best evidence of the sharpness and accuracy with which Moliere diagnosed and castigated the vices of society. The name “Tartuffe” forever became a household name for a hypocrite and a deceiver.

However, the king gradually loses interest in Moliere's works, and, moreover, the playwright is exhausted by family troubles. But he continues to work, creating a kind of trilogy of Tartuffe, Don Juan (1665), banned from showing after fifteen performances, and The Misanthrope (1666). By the way, many literary scholars perceive the main character of “The Misanthrope” as the direct predecessor of Chatsky from the comedy “Woe from Wit.”

Into this hard time Moliere not only writes plays, but also continues to work in the theater. His comedies are magnificent, which not only entertain, but also provide food for the mind - “The Miser” (1668), “ Scientists women"and "A tradesman among the nobility" (1672), "The Imaginary Ill" (1673). The most amazing thing is that during Moliere’s lifetime there was only one edition of his plays - printed in 1666 in the printing house of Guillaume de Luynes. The first book of the two-volume set had almost six hundred pages.

The career of the great playwright had a tragic end. Moliere was seriously ill for a long time (it is believed that he died of tuberculosis). In the comedy “The Imaginary Invalid,” staged in February 1673, the author played main role. The fourth performance of The Imaginary Invalid ended with Moliere losing consciousness right on stage. They carried him away, and after another half hour he began to have pulmonary hemorrhage.

However, after death, unforeseen but understandable circumstances arose. The parish priest, with his authority, forbade the burial of Moliere's ashes in the cemetery. Only the appeal of the comedian's widow to the king made it possible to obtain permission to conduct a religious burial.

Seven years later, in 1680, Louis XIV signed a decree that united Moliere's troupe with the artists of the Burgundy Hotel. This is how it arose new theater- the famous “Comédie Française”, which is also called the “House of Moliere”. The Comédie Française staged Moliere's plays on its stage more than thirty thousand times.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (French Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), theatrical pseudonym - Moliere (French Molière; January 15, 1622, Paris - February 17, 1673, ibid.) - French comedian of the 17th century, creator of classical comedy, actor and director by profession theater, better known as the Molière troupe (Troupe de Molière, 1643-1680).

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin came from an old bourgeois family, which for several centuries was engaged in the craft of upholsterers and drapers.

Jean-Baptiste's father, Jean Poquelin (1595-1669), was the court upholsterer and valet of Louis XIII and sent his son to a prestigious Jesuit school - the Clermont College (now the Lyceum of Louis the Great in Paris), where Jean-Baptiste thoroughly studied Latin, so he read fluently in the original of Roman authors and even, according to legend, translated into French philosophical poem by Lucretius “On the Nature of Things.” After graduating from college in 1639, Jean-Baptiste passed the exam in Orleans for the title of licentiate of rights.

The legal career attracted him no more than his father's craft, and Jean-Baptiste chose the profession of an actor, taking the stage name Moliere.

After meeting the comedians Joseph and Madeleine Béjart, at the age of 21, Moliere became the head of the Illustre Théâtre, a new Parisian troupe of 10 actors, registered with the capital's notary on June 30, 1643. Having entered into fierce competition with the troupes of the Burgundy Hotel and the Marais, already popular in Paris, the “Brilliant Theater” lost in 1645. Moliere and his actor friends decide to seek their fortune in the provinces, joining a troupe of traveling comedians led by Dufresne.

Moliere's wanderings around the French province for 13 years (1645-1658) during the civil war (Fronde) enriched him with everyday and theatrical experience.

Since 1645, Moliere and his friends joined Dufresne, and in 1650 he headed the troupe.

The repertoire hunger of the Molière troupe was the impetus for the start of its dramaturgical activity. Thus, the years of Moliere’s theatrical studies became the years of his author’s studies. Many of the farcical scenarios he composed in the provinces have disappeared. Only the plays “The Jealousy of Barbouillé” (La jalousie du Barbouillé) and “The Flying Doctor” (Le médécin volant) have survived, the attribution of which to Moliere is not entirely reliable.

The titles of a number of similar plays played by Molière in Paris after his return from the provinces are also known (“Gros-René the Schoolboy,” “The Pedant Doctor,” “Gorgibus in the Bag,” “Plan-Plan,” “Three Doctors,” “Cossackin”) , “The Feigned Lump”, “The Twig Knitter”), and these titles echo the situations of Moliere’s later farces (for example, “Gorgibus in the Sack” and “The Tricks of Scapin”, d. III, sc. II). These plays indicate that the tradition of old farce influenced the major comedies of his mature age.

The farcical repertoire performed by Molière's troupe under his direction and with his participation as an actor helped strengthen its reputation. It increased even more after Moliere composed two great comedies in verse - “Naughty, or Everything Is Out of Place” (L’Étourdi ou les Contretemps, 1655) and “Love’s Annoyance” (Le dépit amoureux, 1656), written in the Italian manner literary comedy. The main plot, which represents a free imitation of Italian authors, is layered here with borrowings from various old and new comedies, in accordance with the principle attributed to Moliere “to take his goodness wherever he finds it.” The interest of both plays lies in the development of comic situations and intrigue; the characters in them are still developed very superficially.

Molière's troupe gradually achieved success and fame, and in 1658, at the invitation of 18-year-old Monsieur, the king's younger brother, they returned to Paris.

In Paris, Moliere's troupe made its debut on October 24, 1658 at the Louvre Palace in the presence of. The lost farce “The Doctor in Love” was a huge success and decided the fate of the troupe: the king provided her with the Petit-Bourbon court theater, where she played until 1661, until she moved to the Palais Royal theater, where she remained until Moliere’s death.

From the moment Moliere was installed in Paris, a period of his feverish dramatic work began, the intensity of which did not weaken until his death. During those 15 years from 1658 to 1673, Moliere created all his best plays, which, with few exceptions, provoked fierce attacks from social groups hostile to him.

The Parisian period of Moliere's activity opens with the one-act comedy “Funny Primroses” (French: Les précieuses ridicules, 1659). In this first, completely original, play, Moliere made a bold attack against the pretentiousness and mannerism of speech, tone and manner that prevailed in aristocratic salons, which was greatly reflected in literature and had a strong influence on young people (mainly its female part). The comedy hurt the most prominent simpers. Moliere's enemies achieved a two-week ban on the comedy, after which it was canceled with double success.

On January 23, 1662, Moliere signed a marriage contract with Armande Béjart, Madeleine's younger sister. He is 40 years old, Armande is 20. Against all the decency of that time, only the closest ones were invited to the wedding. The wedding ceremony took place on February 20, 1662 in the Parisian church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.

The comedy "The School for Husbands" (L'école des maris, 1661), which is closely related to the even more mature comedy that followed it, "The School for Wives" (L'école des femmes, 1662), marks Moliere's turn from farce to socio-psychological comedy education. Here Moliere raises questions of love, marriage, attitudes towards women and family structure. The lack of monosyllabicity in the characters’ characters and actions makes “School for Husbands” and especially “School for Wives” the biggest step forward towards creating a comedy of characters that overcomes the primitive schematism of farce. At the same time, “School of Wives” is incomparably deeper and subtler than “School of Husbands,” which in relation to it is like a sketch, a light sketch.

Such satirically pointed comedies could not help but provoke fierce attacks from the playwright’s enemies. Moliere responded to them with a polemical play, “Critique of the School of Wives” (La critique de “L’École des femmes”, 1663). Defending himself from reproaches of being a jerk, he with great dignity set out here his credo as a comic poet (“to delve deeply into the funny side of human nature and amusingly depict on stage the shortcomings of society”) and ridiculed the superstitious admiration for the “rules” of Aristotle. This protest against the pedantic fetishization of “rules” reveals Moliere’s independent position in relation to French classicism, to which he nevertheless adhered in his dramatic practice.

In “The Reluctant Marriage” (Le mariage force, 1664), Moliere raised the genre to greater heights, achieving an organic connection between the comedic (farcical) and ballet elements. In “The Princess of Elide” (La princesse d’Elide, 1664), Moliere took the opposite path, inserting clownish ballet interludes into a pseudo-antique lyrical-pastoral plot. This was the beginning of two types of comedy-ballet, which were further developed by Moliere.

"Tartuffe" (Le Tartuffe, 1664-1669). Directed against the clergy, this mortal enemy of the theater and the entire secular bourgeois culture, in the first edition the comedy contained three acts and depicted a hypocrite priest. In this form, it was staged in Versailles at the festival “Enjoyments of the Magic Island” on May 12, 1664 under the title “Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite” (Tartuffe, ou L’hypocrite) and caused discontent among religious organization"Society of the Holy Sacrament" (Société du Saint Sacrement). In the image of Tartuffe, the Society saw a satire on its members and achieved the prohibition of “Tartuffe”. Moliere defended his play in “Placet” addressed to the king, in which he directly wrote that “the originals achieved the prohibition of the copy.” But this request came to nothing. Then Moliere weakened the harsh parts, renamed Tartuffe Panyulf and took off his cassock. In a new form, the comedy, which had 5 acts and was entitled “The Deceiver” (L’imposteur), was allowed to be presented, but after the first performance on August 5, 1667, it was again withdrawn. Only a year and a half later, Tartuffe was finally presented in the 3rd final edition.

Written by a terminally ill Moliere, a comedy "The Imaginary Sick"- one of his most fun and cheerful comedies. At its 4th performance on February 17, 1673, Moliere, who played the role of Argan, felt ill and did not finish the performance. He was carried home and died a few hours later. The Archbishop of Paris forbade the burial of an unrepentant sinner (actors had to repent on their deathbed) and lifted the ban only on the instructions of the king. The greatest playwright of France was buried at night, without rites, behind the fence of the cemetery where suicides were buried.

Plays by Moliere:

The Jealousy of Barboulieu, farce (1653)
The Flying Doctor, farce (1653)
Shaly, or Everything Is Out of Place, comedy in verse (1655)
Love's Annoyance, Comedy (1656)
Funny primps, comedy (1659)
Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold, comedy (1660)
Don Garcia of Navarre, or the Jealous Prince, comedy (1661)
School for Husbands, comedy (1661)
Pesky, comedy (1661)
School for Wives, comedy (1662)
Criticism of "The School for Wives", comedy (1663)
Versailles Impromptu (1663)
Reluctant Marriage, Farce (1664)
The Princess of Elis, a gallant comedy (1664)
Tartuffe, or the Deceiver, comedy (1664)
Don Juan, or the Stone Feast, comedy (1665)
Love is a healer, comedy (1665)
Misanthrope, comedy (1666)
The reluctant doctor, comedy (1666)
Melicert, pastoral comedy (1666, unfinished)
Comic Pastoral (1667)
The Sicilian, or Love the Painter, comedy (1667)
Amphitryon, comedy (1668)
Georges Dandin, or the Fooled Husband, comedy (1668)
The Miser, comedy (1668)
Monsieur de Poursonnac, comedy-ballet (1669)
Brilliant Lovers, Comedy (1670)
The Tradesman in the Nobility, comedy-ballet (1670)
Psyche, tragedy-ballet (1671, in collaboration with Philippe Quinault and Pierre Corneille)
The Tricks of Scapin, farce comedy (1671)
Countess d'Escarbagna, comedy (1671)
Learned Women, Comedy (1672)
The Imaginary Invalid, a comedy with music and dancing (1673)

Unsurvived plays by Moliere:

The Doctor in Love, farce (1653)
Three Rival Doctors, Farce (1653)
The Schoolmaster, farce (1653)
Kazakin, farce (1653)
Gorgibus in a bag, farce (1653)
Gobber, farce (1653)
The Jealousy of Gros-René, farce (1663)
Gros-René schoolboy, farce (1664)

) during the years of the Civil War - the Fronde - enriched him with everyday and theatrical experience. Dufresne takes over from Moliere and leads the troupe. The repertoire hunger of Molière's troupe was the impetus for the beginning of his dramatic activity. Thus, the years of Moliere’s theatrical studies became the years of his author’s studies. Many of the farcical scenarios he composed in the provinces have disappeared. Only the plays “The Jealousy of Barbouillé” (La jalousie du Barbouillé) and “The Flying Doctor” (Le médécin volant) have survived, the attribution of which to Moliere is not entirely reliable. The titles of a number of similar plays played by Molière in Paris after his return from the provinces are also known (“Gros-Rene the Schoolboy”, “The Pedant Doctor”, “Gorgibus in the Bag”, “Plan-Plan”, “Three Doctors”, “Cossack”) , “The Feigned Lump”, “The Twig Knitter”), and these titles echo the situations of Moliere’s later farces (for example, “Gorgibus in the Sack” and “The Tricks of Scapin”, d. III, sc. II). These plays indicate that the tradition of ancient farce nourished Moliere's dramaturgy and became an organic component in the main comedies of his mature age.

The farcical repertoire, excellently performed by Moliere's troupe under his direction (Moliere himself found himself as an actor in farce), helped strengthen its reputation. It increased even more after Moliere composed two great comedies in verse - “Naughty” (French. L'Étourdi ou les Contretemps , ) and “Love's Annoyance” (Le dépit amoureux,), written in the manner of Italian literary comedy. The main plot, which represents a free imitation of Italian authors, is layered here with borrowings from various old and new comedies, in accordance with Moliere’s favorite principle of “taking his goodness wherever he finds it.” The interest of both plays, according to their entertainment setting, comes down to the development of comic situations and intrigue; the characters in them are still developed very superficially.

Parisian period

Later plays

An overly deep and serious comedy, “The Misanthrope” was greeted coldly by the audience, who were looking primarily for entertainment in the theater. To save the play, Moliere added to it the brilliant farce “The Captive Doctor” (Le médécin malgré lui,). This trinket, which was a huge success and is still preserved in the repertoire, developed Moliere’s favorite theme of quack doctors and ignoramuses. It is curious that just in the most mature period of his work, when Moliere rose to the heights of socio-psychological comedy, he increasingly returned to a farce splashing with fun, devoid of serious satirical tasks. It was during these years that Moliere wrote such masterpieces of entertaining comedy-intrigue as Monsieur de Poursonnac and The Tricks of Scapin (Les fourberies de Scapin, 1671). Moliere returned here to the primary source of his inspiration - to the ancient farce.

In literary circles, there has long been a somewhat disdainful attitude toward these rough, but sparkling, genuine “internal” comic plays. This prejudice goes back to the very legislator of classicism Boileau, the ideologist of bourgeois-aristocratic art, who condemned Moliere for buffoonery and indulging the coarse tastes of the crowd. However, it was precisely in this lower genre, uncanonized and rejected by classical poetics, that Moliere, more than in his “high” comedies, dissociated himself from alien class influences and exploded feudal-aristocratic values. This was facilitated by the “plebeian” form of farce, which has long served the young bourgeoisie as a well-aimed weapon in its struggle against the privileged classes of the feudal era. Suffice it to say that it was in the farces that Moliere developed that type of intelligent and dexterous commoner dressed in a lackey's livery, who would become, half a century later, the main exponent of the aggressive sentiments of the rising bourgeoisie. Scapin and Sbrigani are in this sense the direct predecessors of the servants of Lesage, Marivaux and others up to and including the famous Figaro.

Amphitryon stands out among the comedies of this period. Despite the independence of Moliere's judgments manifested here, it would be a mistake to see the comedy as a satire on the king himself and his court. Moliere retained his faith in the alliance of the bourgeoisie with royal power until the end of his life, expressing the point of view of his class, which had not yet matured before the idea of political revolution.

In addition to the bourgeoisie’s craving for the nobility, Moliere also ridicules its specific vices, of which the first place belongs to stinginess. In the famous comedy "The Miser" (L'avare,), written under the influence of "The Little Egg" (Aulularia) by Plautus, Moliere masterfully draws the repulsive image of the miser Harpagon (his name has become a household word in France), who has a passion for accumulation that is specific to the bourgeoisie as class of money people, took on a pathological character and drowned out all human feelings. Demonstrating the harm of usury for bourgeois morality, showing the corrupting effect of stinginess on the bourgeois family, Moliere at the same time considers stinginess as a moral vice, without revealing the social causes that give rise to it. Such an abstract interpretation of the theme of stinginess weakens social significance comedy, which nevertheless is - with all its advantages and disadvantages - the purest and most typical (along with The Misanthrope) example of a classic comedy of characters.

Moliere also poses the problem of family and marriage in his the latest comedy“Learned Women” (Les femmes savantes, 1672), in which he returns to the theme of “Pretentious Women”, but develops it much wider and deeper. The object of his satire here are female pedants who are fond of science and neglect family responsibilities. Mocking, in the person of Armande, a bourgeois girl who has a condescending attitude toward marriage and prefers to “take philosophy as a husband,” M. contrasts her with Henrietta, a healthy and normal girl who shuns “high matters,” but who has a clear and practical mind, homely and economical. This is the ideal of a woman for Moliere, who here again approaches the patriarchal-philistine point of view. Moliere, like his class as a whole, was still far from the idea of women's equality.

The question of the disintegration of the bourgeois family was also raised in Moliere’s last comedy, “The Imaginary Invalid” (Le malade imaginaire, 1673). This time, the reason for the breakdown of the family is the mania of the head of the house, Argan, who imagines himself sick and is a toy in the hands of unscrupulous and ignorant doctors. Moliere's contempt for doctors, which runs through all of his drama, is understandable historically, if we remember that medical science in his time was based not on experience and observation, but on scholastic reasoning. Moliere attacked charlatan doctors in the same way as he attacked other pseudoscientific pedants and sophists who violate “nature.”

Although written by a terminally ill Moliere, the comedy “The Imaginary Invalid” is one of his most fun and cheerful comedies. At its 4th performance on February 17, Moliere, who played the role of Argan, felt ill and did not finish the performance. He was carried home and died a few hours later. The Archbishop of Paris forbade the burial of an unrepentant sinner (actors had to repent on their deathbed) and lifted the ban only on the instructions of the king. The greatest playwright of France was buried at night, without rites, behind the fence of the cemetery where suicides were buried. Several thousand people followed his coffin." common people", gathered to pay their last respects to their beloved poet and actor. Representatives of high society were absent from the funeral. Class enmity haunted Moliere after his death, as well as during his life, when the “despicable” craft of an actor prevented Moliere from being elected to the French Academy. But his name went down in the history of the theater as the name of the founder of French stage realism. No wonder academic theater In France, the Comédie Française still unofficially calls itself the “House of Molière.”

Characteristic

When assessing Moliere as an artist, one cannot proceed from individual aspects of his artistic technique: language, syllable, composition, versification, etc. This is important only for understanding the extent to which they help him express figuratively his understanding of reality and attitude towards it. Moliere was an artist of the era of primitive capitalist accumulation rising in the feudal environment of the French bourgeoisie. He was a representative of the most advanced class of his era, whose interests included maximum knowledge of reality in order to strengthen his existence and dominance in it. That is why Moliere was a materialist. He recognized the objective existence of a material reality independent of human consciousness, nature (la nature), which determines and shapes human consciousness and is for him the only source of truth and good. With all the power of his comic genius, Moliere attacks those who think differently, who try to rape nature, imposing their subjective conjectures on it. All the images drawn by Moliere of pedants, bookish scientists, charlatan doctors, affectations, marquises, saints, etc. are funny, first of all, for their subjectivity, their pretension to impose their own ideas on nature, not to take into account its objective laws.

Moliere's materialistic worldview makes him an artist who bases his creative method experience, observation, study of people and life. An artist of the advanced rising class, Moliere has relatively great opportunities for understanding the existence of all other classes. In his comedies he reflected almost all aspects of French life in the 17th century. Moreover, all phenomena and people are depicted by him from the point of view of the interests of his class. These interests determine the direction of his satire, irony and buffoonery, which for Moliere are means of influencing reality, remaking it in the interests of the bourgeoisie. Thus, Moliere's comedic art is permeated with a certain class attitude.

But the French bourgeoisie of the 17th century. was not yet, as noted above, “a class for itself.” It was not yet the hegemon of the historical process and therefore did not have a sufficiently mature class consciousness, did not have an organization that united it into a single cohesive force, did not think about a decisive break with the feudal nobility and about a violent change in the existing socio-political system. Hence the specific limitations of Moliere's class knowledge of reality, his inconsistency and hesitation, his concessions to feudal-aristocratic tastes (comedies and ballets), and noble culture (the image of Don Juan). Hence Moliere’s assimilation of the ridiculous portrayal of people of low rank (servants, peasants), which is canonical for the noble theater, and in general his partial subordination to the canon of classicism. Hence further - the insufficiently clear dissociation of the nobles from the bourgeoisie and the dissolution of both in the vague social category of “gens de bien”, that is, enlightened secular people, to whom most of the positive heroes-reasoners of his comedies belong (up to and including Alceste). Criticizing certain shortcomings of the modern noble-monarchical system, Moliere did not understand that the specific culprits of the evil to which he directed the sting of his satire should be sought in the socio-political system of France, in the alignment of its class forces, and not at all in the distortions of the all-good “nature” , that is, in explicit abstraction. The limited knowledge of reality, specific to Moliere as an artist of an unconstituted class, is expressed in the fact that his materialism is inconsistent, and therefore not alien to the influence of idealism. Not knowing that it is the social existence of people that determines their consciousness, Moliere transfers the issue of social justice from the socio-political sphere to the moral sphere, dreaming of resolving it within the existing system through preaching and denunciation.

This was reflected, naturally, in artistic method Moliere. It is characterized by:

a sharp distinction between positive and negative characters, the opposition of virtue and vice;
schematization of images, Moliere’s tendency to use masks instead of living people, inherited from commedia dell’arte;
the mechanical unfolding of action as a collision of forces external to each other and internally almost motionless.

True, Moliere's plays are characterized by great dynamism of comedic action; but this dynamics is external, it is alien to the characters, which are basically static in their psychological content. This was already noticed by Pushkin, who wrote, contrasting Molière with Shakespeare: “The faces created by Shakespeare are not, as in Molière, types of such and such a passion, such and such a vice, but living beings, filled with many passions, many vices... In Moliere, the stingy stingy and that’s all.”

If in his best comedies (Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, Don Juan) Moliere tries to overcome the monosyllabus of his images, the mechanistic nature of his method, then basically his images and the entire structure of his comedies still bear a strong imprint of mechanistic materialism , characteristic of the worldview of the French bourgeoisie of the 17th century. and her artistic style- classicism.

The question of Moliere's attitude to classicism is much more complex than it seems school history literature, which unconditionally labels him a classic. There is no doubt that Moliere was the creator and best representative of the classic comedy of characters, and in a number of his “high” comedies artistic practice Moliere is quite consistent with the classical doctrine. But at the same time, Moliere's other plays (mainly farces) sharply contradict this doctrine. This means that in his worldview Moliere differs from the main representatives of the classical school.

As is known, French classicism is the style of the elite of the bourgeoisie and the most sensitive to the aristocracy. economic development layers of the feudal nobility, on which the former had a certain influence with the rationalism of her thinking, being in turn exposed to the influence of feudal-noble skills, traditions and prejudices. The artistic and political line of Boileau, Racine and others is a line of compromise and class cooperation between the bourgeoisie and the nobility on the basis of serving the tastes of the court and nobility. Any bourgeois-democratic, “popular”, “plebeian” tendencies are absolutely alien to classicism. This is literature aimed at the “select” and contemptuous of the “rabble” (cf. Boileau’s “The Poetics”).

That is why for Moliere, who was the ideologist of the most advanced strata of the bourgeoisie and waged a fierce struggle with the privileged classes for the emancipation of bourgeois culture, the classical canon should have turned out to be too narrow. Moliere approaches classicism only in its most general stylistic principles, expressing the main tendencies of the bourgeois psyche of the era of primitive accumulation. This includes such features as rationalism, typification and generalization of images, their abstract-logical systematization, strict clarity of composition, transparent clarity of thought and style. But even standing mainly on the classical platform, Moliere at the same time rejects a number of core principles of classical doctrine, such as the regulation of poetic creativity, the fetishization of “unities”, which he sometimes treats quite freely (“Don Juan”, for example, by construction - a typical baroque tragicomedy of the pre-classical era), the narrowness and limitations of canonized genres, from which he deviates either towards “low” farce or towards court comedy-ballet. Developing these non-canonized genres, he introduces into them a number of features that contradict the prescriptions of the classical canon: he prefers the external comedy of situations, theatrical buffoonery, and the dynamic unfolding of farcical intrigue to the restrained and noble comedy of conversational comedy; polished salon-aristocratic language. - live folk speech, dotted with provincialisms, dialectisms, vernacular and slang words, sometimes even words of gibberish, macaroonisms, etc. All this gives Moliere’s comedies a democratic grassroots imprint, for which Boileau reproached him, who spoke of his “excessive love for the people.” But this is not Moliere in all of his plays. In general, despite his partial subordination to the classical canon, despite sporadic adjustments to court tastes (in his comedies and ballets), Moliere’s democratic, “plebeian” tendencies still prevail, which are explained by the fact that Moliere was an ideologist of a non-aristocratic the top of the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeois class as a whole, and sought to draw into the orbit of its influence even its most inert and backward layers, as well as the masses of working people who followed the bourgeoisie at that time.

This desire of Moliere to consolidate all layers and groups of the bourgeoisie (due to which he was repeatedly awarded the honorary title of “people's” playwright) determines the great breadth of his creative method, which does not quite fit into the framework classical poetics, serving only a certain part of the class. By outgrowing these boundaries, Moliere is ahead of his era and outlines a program of realistic art that the bourgeoisie was able to fully implement only much later.

The significance of Moliere's work

Moliere had a tremendous influence on the subsequent development of bourgeois comedy both in France and abroad. Under the sign of Moliere, the entire French comedy of the 18th century developed, reflecting the entire complex interweaving of the class struggle, the entire contradictory process of the formation of the bourgeoisie as a “class for itself”, entering political struggle with a noble-monarchical system. She relied on Moliere in the 18th century. both an entertaining comedy by Regnard and a satirically pointed comedy by Lesage, who developed in his “Turkar” the type of tax farmer-financier, briefly outlined by Molière in “The Countess d’Escarbanhas.” Secular society also experienced the influence of Moliere’s “high” comedies. domestic comedy Piron and Gresset and the moral and sentimental comedy of Detouches and Nivelle de Lachausse, reflecting the growth of class consciousness of the middle bourgeoisie. Even the resulting new genre of bourgeois or bourgeois drama, this antithesis of classical drama, was prepared by the comedies of manners of Moliere, which so seriously developed the problems of the bourgeois family, marriage, raising children - these are the main themes of bourgeois drama. Although some ideologists of the revolutionary bourgeoisie of the 18th century. in the process of reassessing the noble monarchical culture, they sharply dissociated themselves from Moliere as a court playwright, but the famous creator of “The Marriage of Figaro”, Beaumarchais, came from Moliere’s school, the only worthy successor to Moliere in the field of social satirical comedy. Less significant is Moliere's influence on bourgeois comedy of the 19th century, which was already alien to Moliere's basic attitude. However, Molière's comedic technique (especially his farces) is used by the masters of entertaining bourgeois comedy-vaudeville of the 19th century from Picard, Scribe and Labiche to Méillac and Halévy, Palleron and others.

Moliere's influence outside France was no less fruitful, and in various European countries translations of Moliere's plays were a powerful stimulus for the creation of national bourgeois comedy. This was the case primarily in England during the Restoration (Wycherley, Congreve), and then in the 18th century by Fielding and Sheridan]. This was the case in economically backward Germany, where familiarization with Moliere’s plays stimulated the original comedic creativity of the German bourgeoisie. Even more significant was the influence of Moliere's comedy in Italy, where the creator of the Italian bourgeois comedy Goldoni was brought up under the direct influence of Moliere. Moliere had a similar influence in Denmark on Holberg, the creator of the Danish bourgeois-satirical comedy, and in Spain on Moratin.

In Russia, acquaintance with Moliere's comedies begins at the end of the 17th century, when Princess Sofia, according to legend, acted out “The Captive Doctor” in her mansion. At the beginning of the 18th century. we find them in Peter's repertoire. From the palace performances, Moliere then moved on to the performances of the first state-owned public theater in St. Petersburg, headed by A.P. Sumarokov. The same Sumarokov was the first imitator of Moliere in Russia. The most “original” Russian comedians were brought up at Moliere’s school classic style- Fonvizin, Kapnist and I. A. Krylov. But the most brilliant follower of Moliere in Russia was Griboyedov, who in the image of Chatsky gave Moliere’s congenial version of his “The Misanthrope” - however, the version was completely original, growing in the specific environment of Arakcheev-bureaucratic Russia in the 20s. XIX century Following Griboedov, Gogol paid tribute to Moliere by translating one of his farces into Russian (“Sganarelle, or the Husband Thinking He’s Been Deceived by His Wife”); Traces of Moliere's influence on Gogol are noticeable even in The Government Inspector. The later noble (Sukhovo-Kobylin) and bourgeois everyday comedy (Ostrovsky) also did not escape the influence of Moliere. In the pre-revolutionary era, bourgeois modernist directors attempted a stage re-evaluation of Moliere's plays from the point of view of emphasizing the elements of “theatricality” and stage grotesque in them (Meyerhold, Komissarzhevsky).

A crater on Mercury is named after Molière.

Legends about Moliere and his work

In 1662, Moliere married the young actress of his troupe, Armande Béjart, the younger sister of Madeleine Béjart, another actress of his troupe. However, this immediately caused a whole series of gossip and accusations of incest, since there is an assumption that Armande is, in fact, the daughter of Madeleine and Moliere, born during the years of their wanderings around the province. To stop these conversations, the King becomes the godson of the first child of Moliere and Armande.
In 2010, Alexander Duval’s farce “Wallpaper” (French) was performed at the Odeon Theater in Paris. "La Tapisserie"), presumably an adaptation of Moliere's farce "Cossack". It is believed that Duval destroyed Moliere's original or copy to hide obvious traces of borrowing, and changed the names of the characters, only their characters and behavior were suspiciously reminiscent of Moliere's heroes. The playwright Guyot de Say tried to restore the original source and presented this farce on the stage of the Foley-Dramatic theater, returning it to its original name.
On November 7, the magazine “Comœdia” published an article by Pierre Louis “Moliere - the creation of Corneille.” Comparing the plays “Amphitryon” by Moliere and “Agésilas” by Pierre Corneille, he concludes that Moliere only signed the text composed by Corneille. Despite the fact that Pierre Louis himself was a hoaxer, the idea, known today as the “Moliere-Corneille Affair”, has become widespread, including in such works as “Corneille under the Mask of Moliere” by Henri Poulay (), “Moliere, or The Imaginary Author" by lawyers Hippolyte Wouter and Christine le Ville de Goyer (), "The Moliere Case: the Great Literary Deception" by Denis Boissier (), etc.

Works

The first edition of Molière's collected works was carried out by his friends Charles Varlet Lagrange and Vino in 1682.

Plays that have survived to this day

Barboulier's Jealousy, farce ()
Flying Doctor, farce ()
Crazy, or Everything Is Out of Place, comedy in verse ()
Love's Annoyance, comedy (1656)
Funny cutesy girls, comedy (1659)
Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold, comedy (1660)
Don Garcia of Navarre, or the Jealous Prince, comedy (1661)
Husband school, comedy (1661)
Annoying, comedy (1661)
School of Wives, comedy (1662)
Criticism of “School for Wives”, comedy (1663)
Versailles impromptu (1663)
Reluctant marriage, farce (1664)
Princess of Elis, gallant comedy (1664)
Tartuffe, or the Deceiver, comedy (1664)
Don Juan, or the Stone Feast, comedy (1665)
Love is a healer, comedy (1665)
Misanthrope, comedy (1666)
A reluctant doctor, comedy (1666)
Melicert, pastoral comedy (1666, unfinished)
Comic pastoral (1667)
The Sicilian, or Love the Painter, comedy (1667)
Amphitryon, comedy (1668)
Georges Dandin, or The Fooled Husband, comedy (1668)
Stingy, comedy (1668)
Monsieur de Poursogniac, comedy-ballet (1669)
Brilliant Lovers, comedy (1670)
Tradesman in the nobility, comedy-ballet (1670)
Psyche, tragedy-ballet (1671, in collaboration with Philippe Quinault and Pierre Corneille)
Scapin's tricks, farce comedy (1671)
Countess d'Escarbanhas, comedy (1671)
Scientists women, comedy (1672)
Imaginary patient, a comedy with music and dancing (1673)

Unsurvived plays

Doctor in love, farce (1653)
Three rival doctors, farce (1653)
School teacher, farce (1653)
Kazakin, farce (1653)
Gorgibus in a bag, farce (1653)
Gobber, farce (1653)
Gros-Rene's Jealousy, farce (1663)
Gros-Rene schoolboy, farce (1664)

The beginning of an acting career

The legal career attracted him no more than his father's craft, and Jean-Baptiste chose the profession of an actor, taking a stage name Moliere. After meeting the comedians Joseph and Madeleine Bejart, at the age of 21, Moliere became the head of the Brilliant Theater ( Illustre Theater), a new Parisian troupe of 10 actors, registered by the capital's notary on June 30, 1643. Having entered into fierce competition with the troupes of the Burgundian Hotel and Marais, already popular in Paris, the “Brilliant Theater” lost in 1645. Moliere and his actor friends decide to seek their fortune in the provinces, joining a troupe of traveling comedians led by Dufresne.

Moliere's troupe in the provinces. First plays

Moliere's wanderings around the French province for 13 years (-) during the civil war (Fronde) enriched him with everyday and theatrical experience.

Parenting comedies

Moliere's influence outside France was no less fruitful, and in various European countries translations of Moliere's plays were a powerful stimulus for the creation of national bourgeois comedy. This was the case primarily in England during the Restoration (Wycherley, Congreve), and then in the 18th century Fielding and Sheridan. This was the case in economically backward Germany, where familiarization with Moliere’s plays stimulated the original comedic creativity of the German bourgeoisie. Even more significant was the influence of Moliere's comedy in Italy, where the creator of the Italian bourgeois comedy Goldoni was brought up under the direct influence of Moliere. Moliere had a similar influence in Denmark on Holberg, the creator of the Danish bourgeois-satirical comedy, and in Spain on Moratin.

In Russia, acquaintance with Moliere's comedies begins at the end of the 17th century, when Princess Sophia, according to legend, acted out the “Reluctant Doctor” in her mansion. At the beginning of the 18th century. we find them in Peter's repertoire. From the palace performances, Moliere then moved on to the performances of the first state-owned public theater in St. Petersburg, headed by A.P. Sumarokov. The same Sumarokov was the first imitator of Moliere in Russia. The most “original” Russian comedians of the classical style were brought up at Moliere’s school - Fonvizin, V.V. Kapnist and I.A. Krylov. But the most brilliant follower of Moliere in Russia was Griboyedov, who in the image of Chatsky gave Moliere’s congenial version of his “The Misanthrope” - however, the version was completely original, growing in the specific environment of Arakcheev-bureaucratic Russia in the 20s. XIX century Following Griboedov, Gogol paid tribute to Moliere by translating one of his farces into Russian (“Sganarelle, or the Husband Thinking He’s Been Deceived by His Wife”); Traces of Moliere's influence on Gogol are noticeable even in The Government Inspector. The later noble (Sukhovo-Kobylin) and bourgeois everyday comedy (Ostrovsky) also did not escape the influence of Moliere. In the pre-revolutionary era, bourgeois modernist directors attempted a stage re-evaluation of Moliere's plays from the point of view of emphasizing the elements of “theatricality” and stage grotesque in them (Meyerhold, Komissarzhevsky).

After the October Revolution, some new theaters that emerged in the 1920s included Moliere's plays in their repertoire. There were attempts at a new "revolutionary" approach to Moliere. One of the most famous is the production of Tartuffe in

Moliere came from an old bourgeois family, which for several centuries was engaged in the craft of upholsterers and drapers. Moliere's father, Jean Poquelin (1595-1669), was the court upholsterer and valet of Louis XIII. Moliere was brought up in a fashionable Jesuit school - Clermont College, where he thoroughly studied Latin, so that he could freely read Roman authors in the original and even, according to legend, translated Lucretius’ philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things” into French (the translation is lost). After graduating from college in 1639, Moliere passed the exam in Orleans for the title of licentiate of rights. But the legal career attracted him no more than his father’s craft, and Moliere chose the profession of an actor. In 1643, Moliere became the head of the Illustre Théâtre. Considering himself a tragic actor, Moliere played the roles of heroes (it was here that he adopted his pseudonym “Moliere”). When the troupe broke up, Moliere decided to seek his fortune in the provinces, joining a troupe of traveling comedians led by Dufresne.

Moliere's troupe in the provinces. First plays

Moliere's youthful wanderings throughout the French province (1645-1658) during the years of the civil war - the Fronde - enriched him with everyday and theatrical experience. From 1650 Moliere took over from Dufresne and led the troupe. The repertoire hunger of Molière's troupe was the impetus for the beginning of his dramatic activity. Thus, the years of Moliere’s theatrical studies became the years of his author’s studies. Many of the farcical scenarios he composed in the provinces have disappeared. Only the plays “The Jealousy of Barbouillé” (La jalousie du Barbouillé) and “The Flying Doctor” (Le médécin volant) have survived, the attribution of which to Moliere is not entirely reliable. The titles of a number of similar plays played by Molière in Paris after his return from the provinces are also known (“Gros-Rene the Schoolboy”, “The Pedant Doctor”, “Gorgibus in the Bag”, “Plan-Plan”, “Three Doctors”, “Cossack”) , “The Feigned Lump”, “The Twig Knitter”), and these titles echo the situations of Moliere’s later farces (for example, “Gorgibus in the Sack” and “The Tricks of Scapin”, d. III, sc. II). These plays indicate that the tradition of ancient farce nourished Moliere's dramaturgy and became an organic component in the main comedies of his mature age.

The farcical repertoire, excellently performed by Moliere's troupe under his direction (Moliere himself found himself as an actor in farce), helped strengthen its reputation. It increased even more after Moliere composed two great comedies in verse - “Naughty” (L’étourdi, 1655) and “Love’s Annoyance” (Le dépit amoureux, 1656), written in the manner of Italian literary comedy. The main plot, which represents a free imitation of Italian authors, is layered here with borrowings from various old and new comedies, in accordance with Moliere’s favorite principle of “taking his goodness wherever he finds it.” The interest of both plays, according to their entertainment setting, comes down to the development of comic situations and intrigue; the characters in them are still developed very superficially.

Parisian period

On October 24, 1658, Moliere's troupe made its debut at the Louvre Palace in the presence of Louis XIV. The lost farce “The Doctor in Love” was a huge success and decided the fate of the troupe: the king provided her with the Petit-Bourbon court theater, where she played until 1661, until she moved to the Palais Royal theater, where she remained until Moliere’s death. From the moment Moliere was installed in Paris, a period of his feverish dramatic work began, the intensity of which did not weaken until his death. During these 15 years, Moliere created all his best plays, which, with few exceptions, provoked fierce attacks from social groups hostile to him.

Early farces

The Parisian period of Moliere's activity opens with the one-act comedy “Funny Primroses” (Les précieuses ridicules, 1659). In this first completely original play, Moliere made a bold attack against the pretentiousness and mannerism of speech, tone and manner that prevailed in aristocratic salons, which was greatly reflected in literature (see Precious Literature) and had a strong influence on young people (mainly women). The comedy hurt the most prominent simpers. Moliere's enemies achieved a two-week ban on the comedy, after which it was canceled with double success.

For all its great literary and social value, "The Pretentious" is a typical farce, reproducing all the traditional techniques of this genre. The same farcical element, which gave Molière’s humor its area brightness and richness, also permeates Molière’s next play “Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold” (Sganarelle, ou Le cocu imaginaire, 1660). Here, the clever servant-rogue of the first comedies - Mascarille - is replaced by the stupid, ponderous Sganarelle, who was later introduced by Moliere into a number of his comedies.

Parenting comedies

Such satirically pointed comedies could not help but provoke fierce attacks from the playwright’s enemies. Moliere responded to them with a polemical play “Critique of the “School of Wives”” (La critique de “L’École des femmes”, 1663). Defending himself from reproaches of being a jerk, he with great dignity set out here his credo as a comic poet (“to delve deeply into the funny side of human nature and amusingly depict on stage the shortcomings of society”) and ridiculed the superstitious admiration for the “rules” of Aristotle. This protest against the pedantic fetishization of “rules” reveals Moliere’s independent position in relation to French classicism, to which he nevertheless adhered in his dramatic practice. Another manifestation of the same independence of Moliere is his attempt to prove that comedy is not only not lower, but even “higher” than tragedy, this main genre of classical poetry. In “Criticism of the “School for Wives””, through the mouth of Dorant, he gives criticism of the classical tragedy from the point of view of its inconsistency with its “nature” (sc. VII), that is, from the standpoint of realism. This criticism is directed against the theme of classical tragedy, against its orientation towards court and high society conventions.

Moliere parried new blows from his enemies in the play “Impromptu of Versailles” (L’impromptu de Versailles, 1663). Original in concept and construction (its action takes place on the stage of the theater), this comedy provides valuable information about Moliere’s work with actors and further development his views on the essence of theater and the tasks of comedy. Subjecting devastating criticism to his competitors - the actors of the Burgundy Hotel, rejecting their method of conventionally pompous tragic acting, Moliere at the same time deflects the reproach that he brings certain people onto the stage. The main thing is that with hitherto unprecedented boldness he mocks the court shufflers-marquises, throwing famous phrase: “The current Marquis makes everyone laugh in the play; and just as ancient comedies always depict a simpleton servant who makes the audience laugh, in the same way we need a hilarious marquis who amuses the audience.”

Mature comedies. Comedy-ballets

Ultimately, Moliere emerged victorious from the battle that followed The School for Wives. Along with the growth of his fame, his connections with the court also strengthened, where he increasingly performed plays composed for court festivities and giving rise to a brilliant spectacle. Moliere creates here special genre“comedy-ballet”, combining ballet, this favorite type of court entertainment (in which the king himself and his entourage acted as performers), with comedy, which gives plot motivation to individual dance “entrées” and frames them with comic scenes. Moliere's first comedy-ballet is “The Insufferables” (Les fâcheux, 1661). It is devoid of intrigue and presents a series of disparate scenes strung together on a primitive plot core. Moliere found here so many apt satirical and everyday features to describe society dandies, gamblers, duelists, projectors and pedants that, with all its formlessness, the play is a step forward in the sense of preparing that comedy of manners, the creation of which was Moliere’s task (“The Insufferables” were staged before "Schools for Wives")

The success of “Insufferables” prompted Moliere to further develop the comedy-ballet genre. In “Forced Marriage” (Le mariage force, 1664), Moliere raised the genre to greater heights, achieving an organic connection between the comedy (farcical) and ballet elements. In “The Princess of Elis” (La princesse d’Elide, 1664), Moliere took the opposite path, inserting clownish ballet interludes into a pseudo-antique lyrical-pastoral plot. This was the beginning of two types of comedy-ballet, which were further developed by Moliere. The first farcical-everyday type is represented by the plays “Love the Healer” (L’amour médécin, 1665), “The Sicilian, or Love the Painter” (Le Sicilien, ou L’amour peintre, 1666), “Monsieur de Poursonnac” (Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, 1669), “The Bourgeois Gentilhomme” (Le bourgeois gentilhomme, 1670), “The Countess d'Escarbagnas” (La comtesse d'Escarbagnas, 1671), “The Imaginary Ill” (Le malade imaginaire, 1673). Despite the enormous distance separating such a primitive farce as “The Sicilian,” which served only as a frame for the “Moorish” ballet, from such extensive social comedies as “The Bourgeois in the Nobility” and “The Imaginary Invalid,” we still have here development one type of comedy - ballet, growing out of an ancient farce and lying on the main line of Moliere's creativity. These plays differ from his other comedies only in the presence of ballet numbers, which do not at all reduce the idea of the play: Moliere makes almost no concessions to court tastes here. The situation is different in the comedies-ballets of the second, gallant-pastoral type, which include: “Mélicerte” (Mélicerte, 1666), “Comic Pastoral” (Pastorale comique, 1666), “Brilliant Lovers” (Les amants magnifiques, 1670), “Psyche” (Psyché, 1671 - written in collaboration with Corneille). Since Moliere made some compromise with feudal-aristocratic tastes, these plays have a more artificial character than the comedies-ballets of the first type.

If in his early comedies Moliere pursued the line of social satire relatively carefully and touched mainly on minor objects, then in his mature works he takes fire at the very top of feudal-aristocratic society in the person of its privileged classes - the nobility and clergy, creating images of hypocrites and libertines in the priestly cassock or powdered wig.

"Tartuffe"

“Tartuffe” (Le Tartuffe, 1664-1669) is dedicated to exposing them. Directed against the clergy, this mortal enemy of the theater and the entire secular bourgeois culture, this comedy contained only 3 acts in the first edition and depicted a hypocrite priest. In this form, it was staged in Versailles at the festival of the “Enjoyments of the Magic Island” on May 12, 1664 under the title “Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite” (Tartuffe, ou L'hypocrite) and caused a storm of indignation from the “Society of the Holy Sacrament” (Société du Saint Sacrement ) - a secret religious and political organization of aristocrats, high-ranking officials and clergy that promoted the idea of orthodox Catholicism. In the image of Tartuffe, the Society saw a satire on its members and achieved the prohibition of “Tartuffe”. Moliere courageously defended his play in “Placet” addressed to the king, in which he directly wrote that “the originals achieved the prohibition of the copy.” But this request came to nothing. Then Moliere weakened the harsh parts, renamed Tartuffe Panyulf and took off his cassock. In a new form, the comedy, which had 5 acts and was entitled “The Deceiver” (L’imposteur), was allowed to be presented, but after the first performance on August 5, 1667, it was withdrawn. Only a year and a half later, Tartuffe was finally presented in the 3rd final edition.

Although Tartuffe is not a clergyman in it, however latest edition hardly softer than the original one. By expanding the outlines of the image of Tartuffe, making him not only a bigot, a hypocrite and a libertine, but also a traitor, an informer and a slanderer, showing his connections with the court, police and court spheres, Moliere significantly strengthened the satirical edge of the comedy, turning it into an indignant pamphlet on modern France, which is actually run by a reactionary clique of saints, in whose hands lies the welfare, honor and even the lives of the humble bourgeois. For Molière, the only light in this kingdom of obscurantism, arbitrariness and violence is the wise monarch, who cuts the knot of intrigue and provides, like a deus ex machina, a happy ending to the comedy when the viewer has no longer believed in its possibility. But precisely because of its randomness, this denouement seems purely artificial and does not change anything in the essence of the comedy, in its main idea.

"Don Juan"

But the image of Don Juan is not woven from only negative traits. For all his depravity, Don Juan has great charm: he is brilliant, witty, brave, and Moliere, denouncing Don Juan as a bearer of the vices of a class hostile to him, at the same time admires him and pays tribute to his knightly charm.

"Misanthrope"

If Moliere, animated by class hatred, introduced into “Tartuffe” and “Don Juan” a number of tragic features that emerged through the fabric of the comedic action, then in “The Misanthrope” (Le Misanthrope, 1666) these features intensified so much that they almost completely pushed aside the comic element. A typical example of “high” comedy with an in-depth psychological analysis of the feelings and experiences of the characters, with a predominance of dialogue over external action, with a complete absence of a farcical element, with an excited, pathetic and sarcastic tone of the protagonist’s speeches, “The Misanthrope” stands apart in the work of Moliere. He notes the moment in his literary activity when the poet, hounded by enemies and suffocating in the stuffy atmosphere of the Versailles court, could not stand it, threw away the comic mask and spoke in verse, “drenched in bitterness and anger.” Bourgeois scholars willingly emphasize the autobiographical character of “The Misanthrope”, the reflection in it family drama Moliere. Although the presence of autobiographical traits in the image of Alceste is undeniable, reducing the entire play to them means glossing over its deep social meaning. The tragedy of Alceste is the tragedy of a leading lone Protestant who does not feel support in broad sections of his own class, which is not yet ripe for political struggle against the existing system.

Undoubtedly, in Alceste’s indignant speeches, own attitude Moliere to modern social orders. But Alceste is not only the image of a noble denouncer of social vices, looking for “truth” and not finding it: he is also distinguished by some duality. On the one hand, he is a positive hero, whose noble indignation arouses the viewer’s sympathy for him; on the other hand, he is not without negative traits that make him comical. He is too hot, unrestrained, tactless, lacking a sense of proportion and humor. He addresses his accusatory speeches to insignificant people who are unable to understand him. With his behavior, at every step he puts himself in a ridiculous position in front of those people whom he himself despises. This ambivalent attitude of Moliere towards his hero is ultimately explained by the fact that, despite his progressive views, he had not yet completely freed himself from alien class influences and from the prejudices that reigned in the society he despised. Alceste is made funny because he decided to go against everyone, even with the best intentions. Here the point of view of the well-meaning bourgeois of the feudal era, who was still firmly in Moliere, prevailed. That is why the revolutionary bourgeoisie of the 18th century overestimated the image of Alceste, reproaching Moliere for the fact that the only honest man in his theater he gave it up to scoundrels (Rousseau), and later (in the era of the Great french revolution) turned Alceste into a “patriot”, a sans-culotte, a friend of the people (Fabre d’Eglantine).

Later plays

An overly deep and serious comedy, “The Misanthrope” was greeted coldly by the audience, who were looking primarily for entertainment in the theater. To save the play, Moliere added to it the brilliant farce “The Captive Doctor” (Le médécin malgré lui, 1666). This trinket, which was a huge success and is still preserved in the repertoire, developed Moliere’s favorite theme of quack doctors and ignoramuses. It is curious that just in the most mature period of his work, when Moliere rose to the heights of socio-psychological comedy, he increasingly returned to a farce splashing with fun, devoid of serious satirical tasks. It was during these years that Moliere wrote such masterpieces of entertaining comedy-intrigue as Monsieur de Poursonnac and The Tricks of Scapin (Les fourberies de Scapin, 1671). Moliere returned here to the primary source of his inspiration - to the ancient farce.

In literary circles, there has long been a somewhat disdainful attitude toward these rough, but sparkling, genuine “internal” comic plays. This prejudice goes back to the very legislator of classicism Boileau, the ideologist of bourgeois-aristocratic art, who condemned Moliere for buffoonery and pandering to the coarse tastes of the crowd. However, it was precisely in this lower genre, uncanonized and rejected by classical poetics, that Moliere, more than in his “high” comedies, dissociated himself from alien class influences and exploded feudal-aristocratic values. This was facilitated by the “plebeian” form of farce, which has long served the young bourgeoisie as a well-aimed weapon in its struggle against the privileged classes of the feudal era. Suffice it to say that it was in the farces that Moliere developed that type of intelligent and dexterous commoner dressed in a lackey's livery, who would become, half a century later, the main exponent of the aggressive sentiments of the rising bourgeoisie. Scapin and Sbrigani are in this sense the direct predecessors of the servants of Lesage, Marivaux and others up to and including the famous Figaro.

Amphitryon (1668) stands out among the comedies of this period. Despite the independence of Moliere's judgments manifested here, it would be a mistake to see the comedy as a satire on the king himself and his court. Moliere retained his faith in the alliance of the bourgeoisie with royal power until the end of his life, expressing the point of view of his class, which had not yet matured before the idea of political revolution.

In addition to the bourgeoisie’s craving for the nobility, Moliere also ridicules its specific vices, of which the first place belongs to stinginess. In the famous comedy “The Miser” (L'avare, 1668), written under the influence of Plautus’s “Aulularia”, Moliere masterfully draws the repulsive image of the miser Harpagon (his name has become a household name in France), who has a passion for accumulation specific to the bourgeoisie as a class of moneyed people, took on a pathological character and drowned out all human feelings. Demonstrating the harm of usury for bourgeois morality, showing the corrupting effect of stinginess on the bourgeois family, Moliere at the same time considers stinginess as a moral vice, without revealing the social causes that give rise to it. Such an abstract interpretation of the theme of stinginess weakens the social significance of the comedy, which nevertheless is - with all its advantages and disadvantages - the purest and most typical (along with The Misanthrope) example of a classic comedy of characters.

Moliere also poses the problem of family and marriage in his penultimate comedy “Learned Women” (Les femmes savantes, 1672), in which he returns to the theme of “Pimps”, but develops it much wider and deeper. The object of his satire here are female pedants who are fond of science and neglect family responsibilities. Mocking, in the person of Armande, a bourgeois girl who has a condescending attitude toward marriage and prefers to “take philosophy as a husband,” M. contrasts her with Henrietta, a healthy and normal girl who shuns “high matters,” but who has a clear and practical mind, homely and economical. This is the ideal of a woman for Moliere, who here again approaches the patriarchal-philistine point of view. Moliere, like his class as a whole, was still far from the idea of women's equality.

Although written by a terminally ill Moliere, the comedy “The Imaginary Invalid” is one of his most fun and cheerful comedies. At its 4th performance on February 17, 1673, Moliere, who played the role of Argan, felt ill and did not finish the performance. He was carried home and died a few hours later. The Archbishop of Paris forbade the burial of an unrepentant sinner (actors had to repent on their deathbed) and lifted the ban only on the instructions of the king. The greatest playwright of France was buried at night, without rites, behind the fence of the cemetery where suicides were buried. Following his coffin were several thousand people of the “common people” who had gathered to pay their last respects to their beloved poet and actor. Representatives of high society were absent from the funeral. Class enmity haunted Moliere after his death, as well as during his life, when the “despicable” craft of an actor prevented Moliere from being elected to the French Academy. But his name went down in the history of the theater as the name of the founder of French stage realism. It is not for nothing that the academic theater of France “Comédie Française” still unofficially calls itself the “House of Molière”.

Characteristic

When assessing Moliere as an artist, one cannot proceed from individual aspects of his artistic technique: language, style, composition, versification, etc. This is important only for understanding the extent to which they help him figuratively express his understanding of reality and attitude towards it. Moliere was an artist of the era of primitive capitalist accumulation rising in the feudal environment of the French bourgeoisie. He was a representative of the most advanced class of his era, whose interests included maximum knowledge of reality in order to strengthen his existence and dominance in it. That is why Moliere was a materialist. He recognized the objective existence of a material reality independent of human consciousness, nature (la nature), which determines and shapes human consciousness and is for him the only source of truth and good. With all the power of his comic genius, Moliere attacks those who think differently, who try to rape nature, imposing their subjective conjectures on it. All the images Moliere draws of pedants, bookish scientists, charlatan doctors, affectations, marquises, saints, etc. are funny, first of all, for their subjectivity, their pretension to impose their own ideas on nature, not to take into account its objective laws.

Moliere's materialistic worldview makes him an artist who bases his creative method on experience, observation, and the study of people and life. An artist of the advanced rising class, Moliere has relatively great opportunities for understanding the existence of all other classes. In his comedies he reflected almost all aspects of French life in the 17th century. Moreover, all phenomena and people are depicted by him from the point of view of the interests of his class. These interests determine the direction of his satire, irony and buffoonery, which for Moliere are means of influencing reality, remaking it in the interests of the bourgeoisie. Thus, Moliere's comedic art is permeated with a certain class attitude.

This was naturally reflected in Moliere’s artistic method. It is characterized by:

a sharp distinction between positive and negative characters, the opposition of virtue and vice;

schematization of images, Moliere’s tendency to use masks instead of living people, inherited from commedia dell’arte;

the mechanical unfolding of action as a collision of forces external to each other and internally almost motionless.

The question of Moliere's attitude to classicism is much more complex than it seems to school literary history, which unconditionally labels him a classic. There is no doubt that Moliere was the creator and best representative of the classical comedy of characters, and in a number of his “high” comedies, Moliere’s artistic practice is quite consistent with the classical doctrine. But at the same time, Moliere's other plays (mainly farces) sharply contradict this doctrine. This means that in his worldview Moliere differs from the main representatives of the classical school.

As is known, French classicism is the style of the upper bourgeoisie and the most sensitive to economic development strata of the feudal nobility, which was closely associated with the aristocracy, on which the former had a certain influence with the rationalism of its thinking, being in turn influenced by feudal-noble skills, traditions and prejudices. The artistic and political line of Boileau, Racine and others is a line of compromise and class cooperation between the bourgeoisie and the nobility on the basis of serving the tastes of the court and nobility. Any bourgeois-democratic, “popular”, “plebeian” tendencies are absolutely alien to classicism. This is literature aimed at the “select” and contemptuous of the “rabble” (cf. Boileau’s “The Poetics”).

That is why for Moliere, who was the ideologist of the most advanced strata of the bourgeoisie and waged a fierce struggle with the privileged classes for the emancipation of bourgeois culture, the classical canon should have turned out to be too narrow. Moliere approaches classicism only in its most general stylistic principles, expressing the main tendencies of the bourgeois psyche of the era of primitive accumulation. This includes such features as rationalism, typification and generalization of images, their abstract-logical systematization, strict clarity of composition, transparent clarity of thought and style. But even standing mainly on the classical platform, Moliere at the same time rejects a number of core principles of classical doctrine, such as the regulation of poetic creativity, the fetishization of “unities”, which he sometimes treats quite freely (“Don Juan”, for example, by construction - a typical baroque tragicomedy of the pre-classical era), the narrowness and limitations of canonized genres, from which he deviates either towards “low” farce or towards court comedy-ballet. Developing these non-canonized genres, he introduces into them a number of features that contradict the prescriptions of the classical canon: he prefers the external comedy of situations, theatrical buffoonery, and the dynamic development of farcical intrigue to the restrained and noble comedy of conversational comedy; polished salon-aristocratic language. - living folk speech, dotted with provincialisms, dialectisms, vernacular and slang words, sometimes even words of gibberish, macaroonisms, etc. All this gives Moliere’s comedies a democratic grassroots imprint, for which Boileau reproached him, who spoke of his “excessive love for the people " But this is not Moliere in all of his plays. In general, despite his partial subordination to the classical canon, despite sporadic adjustments to court tastes (in his comedies and ballets), Moliere’s democratic, “plebeian” tendencies still prevail, which are explained by the fact that Moliere was an ideologist of a non-aristocratic the top of the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeois class as a whole, and sought to draw into the orbit of its influence even its most inert and backward layers, as well as the masses of working people who followed the bourgeoisie at that time.

This desire of Moliere to consolidate all layers and groups of the bourgeoisie (due to which he was repeatedly awarded the honorary title of “people's” playwright) determines the great breadth of his creative method, which does not quite fit into the framework of classical poetics, which served only a certain part of the class. By outgrowing these boundaries, Moliere is ahead of his era and outlines a program of realistic art that the bourgeoisie was able to fully implement only much later.

This explains the enormous influence that Molière had on the subsequent development of bourgeois comedy both in France and abroad. Under the sign of Moliere, the entire French comedy of the 18th century developed, reflecting the entire complex interweaving of the class struggle, the entire contradictory process of the formation of the bourgeoisie as a “class for itself,” entering into a political struggle with the noble-monarchical system. She relied on Moliere in the 18th century. both the entertaining comedy of Regnard and the satirically pointed comedy of Lesage, who developed in his “Turkar” the type of tax farmer-financier, briefly outlined by Molière in “The Countess d’Escarbagnas.” The influence of Molière’s “high” comedies was also felt by the secular everyday comedy of Piron and Gresset and the moral and sentimental comedy of Detouches and Nivelle de Lachausse, reflecting the growth of class consciousness of the middle bourgeoisie. Even the resulting new genre of bourgeois or bourgeois drama (see “Drama”, section “Bourgeois Drama”), this antithesis of classical drama, was prepared by the comedies of manners of Moliere, which so seriously developed the problems of the bourgeois family, marriage, raising children - these are the main themes of bourgeois drama . Although some ideologists of the revolutionary bourgeoisie of the 18th century. in the process of revaluing the noble monarchical culture, they sharply dissociated themselves from M. as a court playwright, but the famous creator of “The Marriage of Figaro”, Beaumarchais, came from the school of Moliere, the only worthy successor to Moliere in the field of social satirical comedy. Less significant is the influence of Moliere on the bourgeois comedy of the 19th century, which was already alien to the basic attitude of Moliere. However, the comedic technique of Moliere (especially his farces) is used by the masters of the entertaining bourgeois comedy-vaudeville of the 19th century from Picard, Scribe and Labiche to Mellac and Halévy, Paleron, etc. .

Moliere's influence outside France was no less fruitful, and in various European countries translations of Moliere's plays were a powerful stimulus for the creation of national bourgeois comedy. This was the case primarily in England during the Restoration (Wycherley, Congreve), and then in the 18th century by Fielding and Sheridan]. This was the case in economically backward Germany, where familiarization with Moliere’s plays stimulated the original comedic creativity of the German bourgeoisie. Even more significant was the influence of Moliere's comedy in Italy, where the creator of the Italian bourgeois comedy, Goldoni, was brought up under the direct influence of Moliere. Moliere had a similar influence in Denmark on Holberg, the creator of the Danish bourgeois satirical comedy, and in Spain on Moratin.

In Russia, acquaintance with Moliere's comedies begins at the end of the 17th century, when Princess Sofia, according to legend, acted out “The Captive Doctor” in her mansion. At the beginning of the 18th century. we find them in Peter's repertoire. From the palace performances, Moliere then moved on to the performances of the first state-owned public theater in St. Petersburg, headed by A.P. Sumarokov. The same Sumarokov was the first imitator of Moliere in Russia. Moliere's school also educated the most “original” Russian comedians of the classical style - Fonvizin, Kapnist and I. A. Krylov. But the most brilliant follower of Moliere in Russia was Griboedov, who in the image of Chatsky gave Moliere’s congenial version of his “The Misanthrope” - however, the version is quite original, growing in the specific environment of Arakcheev-bureaucratic Russia in the 20s. XIX century Following Griboedov, Gogol paid tribute to Moliere by translating one of his farces into Russian (“Sganarelle, or the Husband Thinking He’s Been Deceived by His Wife”); Traces of Moliere's influence on Gogol are noticeable even in The Government Inspector. The later noble (Sukhovo-Kobylin) and bourgeois everyday comedy (Ostrovsky) also did not escape the influence of Moliere. In the pre-revolutionary era, bourgeois modernist directors attempted a stage re-evaluation of Moliere's plays from the point of view of emphasizing the elements of “theatricality” and stage grotesque in them (Meyerhold, Komissarzhevsky).

The October Revolution did not weaken, but, on the contrary, increased interest in Moliere. Repertoire of national theaters former USSR, formed after the revolution, included plays by Moliere, which were translated into the languages of almost all nationalities of the USSR. Since the beginning of the reconstruction period, when problems cultural revolution were raised to a new, higher level, when the theater was given the task of critical development of the artistic heritage, attempts were made to take a new approach to Moliere, to reveal his consonance with the social tasks of the theater of the Soviet era. Of these attempts, the curious, although spoiled by formalist-aesthetic influences, production of “Tartuffe” at the Leningrad State Drama Theater in 1929 deserves mention. The direction (N. Petrov and V. Solovyov) transferred the action of the comedy to the present day and sought to expand its interpretation both along the lines of revealing modern religious obscurantism and bigotry, and along the lines of “Tartuffeism” in politics itself (social compromisers and social fascists).

IN Soviet era it was believed that with all the deep social tone of Moliere’s comedies, his main method, based on the principles of mechanistic materialism, was fraught with dangers for proletarian drama (cf. “The Shot” by Bezymensky).

A crater on Mercury is named after Molière.

Legends about Moliere and his work

In 1662, Moliere married the young actress of his troupe, Armande Béjart, the younger sister of Madeleine Béjart, another actress of his troupe. However, this immediately caused a whole series of gossip and accusations of incest, since there is an assumption that Armande is, in fact, the daughter of Madeleine and Moliere, born during the years of their wanderings around the province. To stop these conversations, the King becomes the godson of the first child of Moliere and Armande.

In 1808, Alexander Duval's farce "Wallpaper" (French "La Tapisserie"), presumably an adaptation of Molière's farce "Cossackin," was performed at the Odeon Theater in Paris. It is believed that Duval destroyed Moliere's original or copy to hide obvious traces of borrowing, and changed the names of the characters, only their characters and behavior were suspiciously reminiscent of Moliere's heroes. Playwright Guyot de Say tried to restore the original source and in 1911 presented this farce on the stage of the Foley-Dramatic theater, returning its original name.

On November 7, 1919, the article “Molière - the creation of Corneille” by Pierre Louis was published in the magazine Comœdia. Comparing the plays “Amphitryon” by Moliere and “Agésilas” by Pierre Corneille, he concludes that Moliere only signed the text composed by Corneille. Despite the fact that Pierre Louis himself was a hoaxer, the idea, known today as the “Molière-Corneille Affair,” has become widespread, including in such works as “Corneille in the Mask of Moliere” by Henri Poulay (1957), “Moliere , or The Imaginary Author” by lawyers Hippolyte Wouter and Christine le Ville de Goyer (1990), “The Moliere Case: The Great Literary Deception” by Denis Boissier (2004), etc.