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The Miser and Other Plays: A New Selection
Molière combined all the traditional elements of comedy - wit, slapstick, spectacle and satire - to create richly sophisticated and enduringly popular dramas. The Miser is the story of Harpagon, a mean-spirited old man who becomes obsessed with making money out of the marriage of his children, while The Hypochondriac, another study in obsession, is a brilliant satire on the medical profession. The School for Wives, in which an ageing domestic tyrant is foiled in his plans to marry his young ward, provoked such an outcry that Molière followed it with The School for Wives Criticized - a witty retort to those who disapproved of the play's supposed immorality. And while Don Juan is the darkest and most tragic of all the plays in this collection, it still mocks the soullessness of the skinflint with scathing irony.
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 1953
About the author
Molière
3,825 books1,346 followersSophisticated comedies of French playwright Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin, include
Tartuffe
(1664),
The Misanthrope
(1666), and
The Bourgeois Gentleman
(1670).
French literary figures, including Molière and Jean de la Fontaine, gathered at Auteuil, a favorite place.
People know and consider Molière, stage of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also an actor of the greatest masters in western literature. People best know l'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), l'Avare ou l'École du mensonge (The Miser), and le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) among dramas of Molière.
From a prosperous family, Molière studied at the Jesuit Clermont college (now lycée Louis-le-Grand) and well suited to begin a life in the theater. While 13 years as an itinerant actor helped to polish his abilities, he also began to combine the more refined elements with ccommedia dell'arte.
Through the patronage of the brother of Louis XIV and a few aristocrats, Molière procured a command performance before the king at the Louvre. Molière performed a classic of [authore:Pierre Corneille] and le Docteur amoureux (The Doctor in Love), a farce of his own; people granted him the use of Salle du Petit-Bourbon, a spacious room, appointed for theater at the Louvre. Later, people granted the use of the Palais-Royal to Molière. In both locations, he found success among the Parisians with les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Ladies), l'École des maris</i> (<i>The School for Husbands</i>), and <i>[book:l'École des femmes (The School for Wives). This royal favor brought a pension and the title "Troupe du Roi" (the troupe of the king). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments.
Molière received the adulation of the court and Parisians, but from moralists and the Church, his satires attracted criticisms. From the Church, his attack on religious hypocrisy roundly received condemnations, while people banned performance of Don Juan . From the stage, hard work of Molière in so many theatrical capacities began to take its toll on his health and forced him to take a break before 1667.
From pulmonary tuberculosis, Molière suffered. In 1673 during his final production of le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), a coughing fit and a haemorrhage seized him as Argan, the hypochondriac. He finished the performance but collapsed again quickly and died a few hours later. In time in Paris, Molière completely reformed.
French literary figures, including Molière and Jean de la Fontaine, gathered at Auteuil, a favorite place.
People know and consider Molière, stage of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also an actor of the greatest masters in western literature. People best know l'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), l'Avare ou l'École du mensonge (The Miser), and le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) among dramas of Molière.
From a prosperous family, Molière studied at the Jesuit Clermont college (now lycée Louis-le-Grand) and well suited to begin a life in the theater. While 13 years as an itinerant actor helped to polish his abilities, he also began to combine the more refined elements with ccommedia dell'arte.
Through the patronage of the brother of Louis XIV and a few aristocrats, Molière procured a command performance before the king at the Louvre. Molière performed a classic of [authore:Pierre Corneille] and le Docteur amoureux (The Doctor in Love), a farce of his own; people granted him the use of Salle du Petit-Bourbon, a spacious room, appointed for theater at the Louvre. Later, people granted the use of the Palais-Royal to Molière. In both locations, he found success among the Parisians with les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Ladies), l'École des maris</i> (<i>The School for Husbands</i>), and <i>[book:l'École des femmes (The School for Wives). This royal favor brought a pension and the title "Troupe du Roi" (the troupe of the king). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments.
Molière received the adulation of the court and Parisians, but from moralists and the Church, his satires attracted criticisms. From the Church, his attack on religious hypocrisy roundly received condemnations, while people banned performance of Don Juan . From the stage, hard work of Molière in so many theatrical capacities began to take its toll on his health and forced him to take a break before 1667.
From pulmonary tuberculosis, Molière suffered. In 1673 during his final production of le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), a coughing fit and a haemorrhage seized him as Argan, the hypochondriac. He finished the performance but collapsed again quickly and died a few hours later. In time in Paris, Molière completely reformed.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
December 4, 2020
This typical comedy of Moliere illustrates his comic genius as well as his weaknesses. With the casualness common to so many of his contemporaries, he dipped liberally into other authors for his material and mich of the miser derives from Plautus Aulularia.
February 27, 2017
Introduction
Chronology
Bibliography
Note on Money
Translator's Note
--The School for Wives
--The School for Wives Criticized
--Don Juan
--The Miser
--The Hypochondriac
Explanatory Notes
Chronology
Bibliography
Note on Money
Translator's Note
--The School for Wives
--The School for Wives Criticized
--Don Juan
--The Miser
--The Hypochondriac
Explanatory Notes
March 7, 2016
Just to be clear I only read Miser here. It was for my school, very short and fun and awfully similar to two of the other comedies with the same theme as this one. It wasn't that bad but I'm not very keen on books we have to read for school. I don't think that's ever gonna change.
May 12, 2015
Simply grand. Moliere's world--at least in the text--is a joyful and hilarious one. True, he does have some stock characters and some of the plots seem similar, but that does not detract from the quality.
February 12, 2022
January 15, 2022, marked the 400th birthday of Molière; I figured it was time I gave him a look.
I had a bad bout of insomnia this week and it was this anthology that got me through it. They perked me up, gave me more than a few belly laughs and lifted my spirits in those dull hours waiting for dawn to break.
Wood's translation are very British, with idioms transposed, currency converted and other small, but frustrating ways in which 17th century Paris is turned into 17th century London. Still, even through this thick filter of cultural rendering, the qualities of the original do shine through. Notably the quick wit and fondness for people just as they are, imperfect.
There are all sorts of ways that Moliere is seen as the father of modern comedy. I can't be bothered to go through all that pulling apart of an artist's work. At the end of the day what matters is whether the plays can still pull you in. For this reader they most definitely can.
I had a bad bout of insomnia this week and it was this anthology that got me through it. They perked me up, gave me more than a few belly laughs and lifted my spirits in those dull hours waiting for dawn to break.
Wood's translation are very British, with idioms transposed, currency converted and other small, but frustrating ways in which 17th century Paris is turned into 17th century London. Still, even through this thick filter of cultural rendering, the qualities of the original do shine through. Notably the quick wit and fondness for people just as they are, imperfect.
There are all sorts of ways that Moliere is seen as the father of modern comedy. I can't be bothered to go through all that pulling apart of an artist's work. At the end of the day what matters is whether the plays can still pull you in. For this reader they most definitely can.
March 23, 2017
I started reading this to check off a box on this Reading Challenge I got at the library, for "A Play." VERY pleasantly surprised...I'd love to see some of these performed live! They're timeless satires.
I loved "That Scoundrel Scapin" the most. Especially that part with Geronte hiding in a sack that's straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
"Don Juan" rubbed me the wrong way a bit, though. The protagonist is such a major dick and goes completely unchallenged and unchecked throughout 99% of the play.
I loved "That Scoundrel Scapin" the most. Especially that part with Geronte hiding in a sack that's straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
"Don Juan" rubbed me the wrong way a bit, though. The protagonist is such a major dick and goes completely unchallenged and unchecked throughout 99% of the play.
August 8, 2023
Why have I never heard or read Moliere before? His plays are hilarious and perfectly ridiculous! Many of the characters are over the top, but Moliere reminds me so much of being a more accessible Shakespeare, and if you enjoy Shakespeare's comedies, I think you will enjoy these plays!
December 24, 2017
I have long held a natural aversion to plays, which extends to the poetic outings of Homer and perhaps Dante, without any deep rooted reason to do so other than a suspicion that the focus on form takes the writing too far away from my own natural zeal to express life in words always with a pulse. With a loud beating heart.
Yet my position was shaken with Medea – which is an extremely powerful, and yet clearly poetic text – and then more so of late, with The Importance of Being Ernest. I found some of the interplay in dialogue in that splendid work of Oscar Wilde resonating with my own haphazard attempts at producing flurries of spoken word between characters in my own writing.
And with Moliere referenced by a fair handful of my favourite wordsmiths, I decided to roll his dice…
The plays in this novel are cunningly constructed, with humour abounding through the expose of mainly (but not solely) male awfulness, pride, conceit, arrogance and the ingenuity of those who play to the vanity of such horridly common traits found in humanity, to seek their own goals.
What I enjoyed most of Moliere was his unerring tendency to show humanity in its naked truth, without seeking any salvation, any excuse, any hint of redemption. Or judgment. This is where the humour lies, in his honesty absent of moralising or any other form of condemnation…yet I will also add that there is wisdom, philosophy and challenging passages which pose questions of life itself to the reader. For example…
MUSIC MASTER: There’s nothing so useful in a State as music.
DANCING MASTER: There’s nothing so necessary to men as dancing.
MUSIC MASTER: Without music, a State cannot subsist.
DANCING MASTER: Without the dance, a man can do nothing.
MUSIC MASTER: All the disorders, all the wars one sees in the world happen only from not learning music.
DANCING MASTER: All the misfortunes of mankind, all the dreadful disasters that fill the history books, the blunders of politicians and the faults of omission of great commanders, all this comes from not knowing how to dance.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: How is that?
MUSIC MASTER: Does not war result from a lack of agreement between men?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: That is true.
MUSIC MASTER: And if all men learned music, wouldn’t that be a means of bringing about harmony and of seeing universal peace in the world?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: You are right.
DANCING MASTER: When a man has committed a mistake in his conduct, in family affairs, or in affairs of government of a state, or in the command of an army, do we not always say, “He took a bad step in such and such an affair?”
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes, that’s said.
DANCING MASTER: And can taking a bad step result from anything but not knowing how to dance?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: It’s true, you are both right.
DANCING MASTER: It makes you see the excellence and usefulness of music and the dance.
….
FENCING MASTER: As I have told you, the entire secret of fencing lies in two things: to give and not to receive; and as I demonstrated to you the other day, it is impossible for you to receive, if you know how to turn your opponent’s sword from the line of your body. This depends solely on a slight movement of the wrist, either inward or outward.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: In this way then, a man, without courage, is sure to kill his man and not be killed himself?
FENCING MASTER: Without doubt. Didn’t you see the demonstration?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes.
FENCING MASTER: And thus you have seen how men like me should be considered by the State, and how the science of fencing is more important than all the other useless sciences, such as dancing, music, …
DANCING MASTER: Careful there, Monsieur swordsman! Speak of the dance only with respect.
MUSIC MASTER: I beg you to speak better of the excellence of music.
FENCING MASTER: You are amusing fellows, to want to compare your sciences with mine!
….
SCENE III (Philosophy Master, Music Master, Dancing Master, Fencing Master, Monsieur Jourdain, Lackeys)
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Aha! Monsieur Philosopher, you come just in time with your philosophy. Come, make a little peace among these people.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: What’s happening? What’s the matter, gentlemen.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: They have got into a rage over the superiority of their professions to the point of injurious words and of wanting to come to blows.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: What! Gentlemen, must you act this way? Haven’t you read the learned treatise that Seneca composed on anger? Is there anything more base and more shameful than this passion, which turns a man into a savage beast? And shouldn’t reason be the mistress of all our activities?
My favourite of the plays was by far The Scoundrel Scapin, in some way due to the title, as I enjoy the word scoundrel…its one of those words with a wondrous duality, for there can be scoundrels of both the highest and lowest order, and I often call my beloved hellhound Baby Scoundrel…There is something of mischief in the word, in its sound, in its construction, close to always in its modern delivery. one of the few ‘sc’ words which have anything playful inherent. Scabies. Scabbard. Scared. School. Scale…Indeed, the first few which come to mind are anything but playful. And for Moliere to double the impact by naming the protagonist Scapin (SCA in the below), adds to the fun.
……
HYA. Alas! Why must the course of true love never run smooth? How
sweet it would be to love with no link wanting in those chains which
unite two hearts.
SCA. How mistaken you are about this! Security in love forms a very
unpleasant calm. Constant happiness becomes wearisome. We want ups
and downs in life; and the difficulties which generally beset our
path in this world revive us, and increase our sense of pleasure.
….
SIL. Why do you recklessly engage in enterprises that may bring you
into trouble?
SCA. I delight in dangerous enterprises.
SCA. Such dangers never stop me, and I hate those fearful hearts
which, by dint of thinking of what may happen, never undertake
anything.
…
Scapin is a fiend, a brigand, truly a scoundrel, yet can steel himself towards the happiness of others…when it suits. He evokes hints of Vautrin; the master schemer, the archetypal anti-hero of Balzac conjuring whose zeal and ingenuity is only rivalled in classic literature by another creation of gallic root; my dear brother who never was – Edmund Dantes. (for those still stuck on Ferris Bueller and who felt they delved deeper with Holden Caulfield, I strongly urge you to seek out the more fierce and expansive and adult blossoming of similar roots in the characters mentioned)
Dantes had huge heart, ultimate passion…was forced by circumstance to adopt cunning. Vautrin also had passion…an odd passion which may well have leaned towards the homosexual, yet seemed more to me always paternal and brutal and geared towards punishing the horrid, nourishing the rare and precious pure,…Scapin is merely a wily menace, who could help or hinder on a damn whim!
Yet despite Moliere’s playful mocking and rendition of the worst of humanity – which hasn’t changed a damn jot over the ages, other than it has become perhaps more dumb, less guile, more prone to herding – he clearly admired, felt was possible, and was likely dismayed by in equal measure through his own essence seeking the same, an expression of innocence and purity in the maelstrom of the wretched commonalities of the human condition, for true love was as much a throbbing vein in his work as the conceited, arrogant, scheming legion…Hints of the fairytale stream through his work.
Citandre (to Lucinde) – Will you be constant in your love for me?
Lucinde – Will you keep your promises?
Citandre – All my life! I want nothing more than to be yours, and my actions will bear witness to it always.
This connection of true love prevails throughout his work. It serves as a warm and hopeful beacon of innocent beauty in an otherwise rather ugly exposition of realism of the ways of the human world.
I hugely enjoy this under current of the romantic souls seeking the richest wine that can be drunk, those willing to sacrifice anything and everything, to move from riches to rags, to lose their position in society for the sake of a heavenly, mutual devotion, to move the moon and earth to be as close to -and as one with – the home their heart finds in another, no matter the cost…a love of constance which means more than anything else ever could. This is more possible than most are led to believe, or deem viable without shedding too many perceived as meaningful layers of who they feel they are…which isn’t to suggest that compromise is a sin, not in the slightest, but for the realist – as we all must be in order to prosper in any way – to find a balance with the most sublime idealism, one must believe in true love as much as one must accept our limitations, as humans, and the world in which we live…
There is such amazing happiness to be found in giving oneself totally to Love. As there is such agony to be found through the same endeavour. Yet why live a life absent of risk, when Shangri La is possible, through entangling deeply, truly, madly openly and totally with another? Why stay in the shallows, seek safety in listless numbers of Herd, when the wide open ocean is there…with all its adventure, and danger and glory and magic? Moliere encourages this forage into the wilderness that is our calling as thinking, feeling hearts and souls…He introduces the pitfalls, the forces working against our path to happiness, but allows the stardust of immensely consuming devotion to true romance, to prevail…Seek love and adventure, scheme if you must, but stay true to your goal of basking in the glow of giving your everything to another and finding the same flowing from them into your own essence.
The writing is glorious, the rendition of humanity in all its ugliness and brief, fleeting moments of beauty is splendid, and regardless of whether you are already adjusted to reading plays more than experiencing them performed on stage, Moliere’s work is well worth your time.
He will make you laugh, make you consider your own behaviour, your own weaknesses as well as strengths, and he will inspire…What more can we hope for? From any man or woman who spends their life aiming to paint life into verse?
Yet my position was shaken with Medea – which is an extremely powerful, and yet clearly poetic text – and then more so of late, with The Importance of Being Ernest. I found some of the interplay in dialogue in that splendid work of Oscar Wilde resonating with my own haphazard attempts at producing flurries of spoken word between characters in my own writing.
And with Moliere referenced by a fair handful of my favourite wordsmiths, I decided to roll his dice…
The plays in this novel are cunningly constructed, with humour abounding through the expose of mainly (but not solely) male awfulness, pride, conceit, arrogance and the ingenuity of those who play to the vanity of such horridly common traits found in humanity, to seek their own goals.
What I enjoyed most of Moliere was his unerring tendency to show humanity in its naked truth, without seeking any salvation, any excuse, any hint of redemption. Or judgment. This is where the humour lies, in his honesty absent of moralising or any other form of condemnation…yet I will also add that there is wisdom, philosophy and challenging passages which pose questions of life itself to the reader. For example…
MUSIC MASTER: There’s nothing so useful in a State as music.
DANCING MASTER: There’s nothing so necessary to men as dancing.
MUSIC MASTER: Without music, a State cannot subsist.
DANCING MASTER: Without the dance, a man can do nothing.
MUSIC MASTER: All the disorders, all the wars one sees in the world happen only from not learning music.
DANCING MASTER: All the misfortunes of mankind, all the dreadful disasters that fill the history books, the blunders of politicians and the faults of omission of great commanders, all this comes from not knowing how to dance.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: How is that?
MUSIC MASTER: Does not war result from a lack of agreement between men?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: That is true.
MUSIC MASTER: And if all men learned music, wouldn’t that be a means of bringing about harmony and of seeing universal peace in the world?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: You are right.
DANCING MASTER: When a man has committed a mistake in his conduct, in family affairs, or in affairs of government of a state, or in the command of an army, do we not always say, “He took a bad step in such and such an affair?”
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes, that’s said.
DANCING MASTER: And can taking a bad step result from anything but not knowing how to dance?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: It’s true, you are both right.
DANCING MASTER: It makes you see the excellence and usefulness of music and the dance.
….
FENCING MASTER: As I have told you, the entire secret of fencing lies in two things: to give and not to receive; and as I demonstrated to you the other day, it is impossible for you to receive, if you know how to turn your opponent’s sword from the line of your body. This depends solely on a slight movement of the wrist, either inward or outward.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: In this way then, a man, without courage, is sure to kill his man and not be killed himself?
FENCING MASTER: Without doubt. Didn’t you see the demonstration?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes.
FENCING MASTER: And thus you have seen how men like me should be considered by the State, and how the science of fencing is more important than all the other useless sciences, such as dancing, music, …
DANCING MASTER: Careful there, Monsieur swordsman! Speak of the dance only with respect.
MUSIC MASTER: I beg you to speak better of the excellence of music.
FENCING MASTER: You are amusing fellows, to want to compare your sciences with mine!
….
SCENE III (Philosophy Master, Music Master, Dancing Master, Fencing Master, Monsieur Jourdain, Lackeys)
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Aha! Monsieur Philosopher, you come just in time with your philosophy. Come, make a little peace among these people.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: What’s happening? What’s the matter, gentlemen.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: They have got into a rage over the superiority of their professions to the point of injurious words and of wanting to come to blows.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: What! Gentlemen, must you act this way? Haven’t you read the learned treatise that Seneca composed on anger? Is there anything more base and more shameful than this passion, which turns a man into a savage beast? And shouldn’t reason be the mistress of all our activities?
My favourite of the plays was by far The Scoundrel Scapin, in some way due to the title, as I enjoy the word scoundrel…its one of those words with a wondrous duality, for there can be scoundrels of both the highest and lowest order, and I often call my beloved hellhound Baby Scoundrel…There is something of mischief in the word, in its sound, in its construction, close to always in its modern delivery. one of the few ‘sc’ words which have anything playful inherent. Scabies. Scabbard. Scared. School. Scale…Indeed, the first few which come to mind are anything but playful. And for Moliere to double the impact by naming the protagonist Scapin (SCA in the below), adds to the fun.
……
HYA. Alas! Why must the course of true love never run smooth? How
sweet it would be to love with no link wanting in those chains which
unite two hearts.
SCA. How mistaken you are about this! Security in love forms a very
unpleasant calm. Constant happiness becomes wearisome. We want ups
and downs in life; and the difficulties which generally beset our
path in this world revive us, and increase our sense of pleasure.
….
SIL. Why do you recklessly engage in enterprises that may bring you
into trouble?
SCA. I delight in dangerous enterprises.
SCA. Such dangers never stop me, and I hate those fearful hearts
which, by dint of thinking of what may happen, never undertake
anything.
…
Scapin is a fiend, a brigand, truly a scoundrel, yet can steel himself towards the happiness of others…when it suits. He evokes hints of Vautrin; the master schemer, the archetypal anti-hero of Balzac conjuring whose zeal and ingenuity is only rivalled in classic literature by another creation of gallic root; my dear brother who never was – Edmund Dantes. (for those still stuck on Ferris Bueller and who felt they delved deeper with Holden Caulfield, I strongly urge you to seek out the more fierce and expansive and adult blossoming of similar roots in the characters mentioned)
Dantes had huge heart, ultimate passion…was forced by circumstance to adopt cunning. Vautrin also had passion…an odd passion which may well have leaned towards the homosexual, yet seemed more to me always paternal and brutal and geared towards punishing the horrid, nourishing the rare and precious pure,…Scapin is merely a wily menace, who could help or hinder on a damn whim!
Yet despite Moliere’s playful mocking and rendition of the worst of humanity – which hasn’t changed a damn jot over the ages, other than it has become perhaps more dumb, less guile, more prone to herding – he clearly admired, felt was possible, and was likely dismayed by in equal measure through his own essence seeking the same, an expression of innocence and purity in the maelstrom of the wretched commonalities of the human condition, for true love was as much a throbbing vein in his work as the conceited, arrogant, scheming legion…Hints of the fairytale stream through his work.
Citandre (to Lucinde) – Will you be constant in your love for me?
Lucinde – Will you keep your promises?
Citandre – All my life! I want nothing more than to be yours, and my actions will bear witness to it always.
This connection of true love prevails throughout his work. It serves as a warm and hopeful beacon of innocent beauty in an otherwise rather ugly exposition of realism of the ways of the human world.
I hugely enjoy this under current of the romantic souls seeking the richest wine that can be drunk, those willing to sacrifice anything and everything, to move from riches to rags, to lose their position in society for the sake of a heavenly, mutual devotion, to move the moon and earth to be as close to -and as one with – the home their heart finds in another, no matter the cost…a love of constance which means more than anything else ever could. This is more possible than most are led to believe, or deem viable without shedding too many perceived as meaningful layers of who they feel they are…which isn’t to suggest that compromise is a sin, not in the slightest, but for the realist – as we all must be in order to prosper in any way – to find a balance with the most sublime idealism, one must believe in true love as much as one must accept our limitations, as humans, and the world in which we live…
There is such amazing happiness to be found in giving oneself totally to Love. As there is such agony to be found through the same endeavour. Yet why live a life absent of risk, when Shangri La is possible, through entangling deeply, truly, madly openly and totally with another? Why stay in the shallows, seek safety in listless numbers of Herd, when the wide open ocean is there…with all its adventure, and danger and glory and magic? Moliere encourages this forage into the wilderness that is our calling as thinking, feeling hearts and souls…He introduces the pitfalls, the forces working against our path to happiness, but allows the stardust of immensely consuming devotion to true romance, to prevail…Seek love and adventure, scheme if you must, but stay true to your goal of basking in the glow of giving your everything to another and finding the same flowing from them into your own essence.
The writing is glorious, the rendition of humanity in all its ugliness and brief, fleeting moments of beauty is splendid, and regardless of whether you are already adjusted to reading plays more than experiencing them performed on stage, Moliere’s work is well worth your time.
He will make you laugh, make you consider your own behaviour, your own weaknesses as well as strengths, and he will inspire…What more can we hope for? From any man or woman who spends their life aiming to paint life into verse?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 21, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in October and November 1998.
(This book as listed on Goodreads consists of two editions of Penguin translations of Molière, which have the same title, some of the same translations of the same plays, but some different ones too. Mine is the older one, published in the 1950s as reprinted in 1984.)
The Would-Be Gentleman
Molière's delightful exposé of the world of the rich bourgeois aspiring to take a place in upper class society never fails to delight. M. Jourdain is so anxious to fit into that society where he never can; he will always be an outsider there because he is only aping a way of life which the others above him have led from the cradle. He would be better off to imitate the Boffins in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, who continue to talk of their disreputable trade in fashionable drawing rooms because it is inconceivable to them that the dust heaps could fail to be an object of passionate interest.
The Would-be Gentleman is certainly not perfect; it is really a series of sketches, almost as though Molière was writing a series of treatments for a sit-com season. This is because of a distinct lack of overall plot, the main plot seeming almost tacked on. This is the courtship between Cléonte and Jourdain's daughter Lucille. Jourdain refuses to allow Cléonte to marry her because he comes from Jourdain's old background; he wants Lucille to marry a noble. Cléonte takes advantage of Jourdain's extreme snobbishness by disguising himself as a Turkish prince who has heard of Lucille's famous beauty.
The best parts of the play are the episodes at the beginning, completely independent from the Cléonte/Lucille plot, concerning Jourdain's attempts to better himself at the hands of his dancing master, music master, fencing master and a philosopher. Molière makes much comedy from his lack of aptitude for these arts, which is only equalled by his incomprehension of them. (They include the famous scene in which Jourdain is amazed to discover that he has been speaking prose all his life, when he thought he was just talking.)
In a later age, Molière would surely have integrated these scenes more closely with what comes later, and into the overall plot of the drama. Since The Would-Be Gentleman is actually quite a short play, this could have been acheived without losing anything; but the tightly plotted farce was not Molière's genre, and we must be grateful for what his genius did leave us.
Les Fourberies de Scapin
That Scoundrel Scapin is definitely not an exact translation of the title of Molière's play, but it is difficult to imagine an alternative which doesn't sound a little odd in English - a fourberie is a deceit, or lying trick.
In Molière's output, there are about five really well known plays, and then lots of others which are very obscure, particularly in English. Among the obscure plays, most are very stereotypical commedia dell'arte standard plots - in fact, most of them have identical plots. This makes Molière's plays, like those of Marivaux, seem to me to be rather interchangeable and anonymous, however much fun in themselves. As so often with genre writing, as this kind of comedy is (though a genre now pretty much extinct), it is only when the conventional gestures are transcended that a true masterpiece results.
To anyone with a passing acquaintance with the genre (i.e. anyone who has read more than one or two plays by either writer), it will not come as a surprise to learn that Scapin is a reascaly servant, or that his tricks are played to bring about the marriage of his young master Octavio against the opposition of Octavio's father. The tricks in fact have little to do with the resolution of the plot, which rests on a conventional (and most unlikely) revelation that the girl he loves is in fact secretly the very woman his father wants him to marry. Not Molière's best.
L'amour médecin
A short introduction by Molière explains a lot about this play; he wrote it in five days in response to a demand from Louis XIV for something to amuse him. The rapid execution is quite apparent; important aspects of the plot are missing, and the opening (a discussion between the arts as to which of them is to entertain the king) is weak. The plot itself is the standard Molière one of the father opposing the marriage of his daughter; what is missing is any motivation for him to do so. She feigns illness; her lover disguises himself as a doctor to visit her; he prescribes a fake wedding to cure her of an obsession with marriage; the revelation that it was a true wedding ends the play.
In the end, it reads like a first draft; amusing enough, but one to work on.
Don Juan
Molière's version of the Don Juan story is cast as a comedy, however bizarre that may sound to those more familiar with the Mozart opera than any other treatment of the tale. The grim material - Don Juan being dragged off to hell when he refuses to repent of his lust even after warnings received from an animated statue - doesn't really fit into a comedy, but does at least provide a change from Molière's standard plot.
The main comic elements used by Molière are the stereotyped device of the imprtinent serving man (in this case aghast at his master's lifestyle but lacking the courage to say so to his face) and Juan's attempt to seduce two very rustic peasant girls simultaneously. Unfortunately, these scenes make the play seem like a poor imitation of a Shakespeare tragedy with the clown scenes particularly inappropriate to the main plot. Basically, for Molière to attempt this was an interesting experiment, but which moved out of his realm of genius.
This may sound like I've been saying that Molière should have written something outside the genre of commedia dell'arte plays, but then I condemn a play which is about as far removed from this genre as is possible. However, Molière was clearly gifted in the style of comedy which he made his own; his greatest plays are those where he subverts the genre and goes beyond its standard plot and character elements, which he usually did by creating a monstrous central character (like Harpagon in The Miser) who completely overbalanced and dominated the play. Don Juan is rather different; it is so far outside the genre, it cannot be said to be transcending it; it is more ignoring it completely.
(This book as listed on Goodreads consists of two editions of Penguin translations of Molière, which have the same title, some of the same translations of the same plays, but some different ones too. Mine is the older one, published in the 1950s as reprinted in 1984.)
The Would-Be Gentleman
Molière's delightful exposé of the world of the rich bourgeois aspiring to take a place in upper class society never fails to delight. M. Jourdain is so anxious to fit into that society where he never can; he will always be an outsider there because he is only aping a way of life which the others above him have led from the cradle. He would be better off to imitate the Boffins in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, who continue to talk of their disreputable trade in fashionable drawing rooms because it is inconceivable to them that the dust heaps could fail to be an object of passionate interest.
The Would-be Gentleman is certainly not perfect; it is really a series of sketches, almost as though Molière was writing a series of treatments for a sit-com season. This is because of a distinct lack of overall plot, the main plot seeming almost tacked on. This is the courtship between Cléonte and Jourdain's daughter Lucille. Jourdain refuses to allow Cléonte to marry her because he comes from Jourdain's old background; he wants Lucille to marry a noble. Cléonte takes advantage of Jourdain's extreme snobbishness by disguising himself as a Turkish prince who has heard of Lucille's famous beauty.
The best parts of the play are the episodes at the beginning, completely independent from the Cléonte/Lucille plot, concerning Jourdain's attempts to better himself at the hands of his dancing master, music master, fencing master and a philosopher. Molière makes much comedy from his lack of aptitude for these arts, which is only equalled by his incomprehension of them. (They include the famous scene in which Jourdain is amazed to discover that he has been speaking prose all his life, when he thought he was just talking.)
In a later age, Molière would surely have integrated these scenes more closely with what comes later, and into the overall plot of the drama. Since The Would-Be Gentleman is actually quite a short play, this could have been acheived without losing anything; but the tightly plotted farce was not Molière's genre, and we must be grateful for what his genius did leave us.
Les Fourberies de Scapin
That Scoundrel Scapin is definitely not an exact translation of the title of Molière's play, but it is difficult to imagine an alternative which doesn't sound a little odd in English - a fourberie is a deceit, or lying trick.
In Molière's output, there are about five really well known plays, and then lots of others which are very obscure, particularly in English. Among the obscure plays, most are very stereotypical commedia dell'arte standard plots - in fact, most of them have identical plots. This makes Molière's plays, like those of Marivaux, seem to me to be rather interchangeable and anonymous, however much fun in themselves. As so often with genre writing, as this kind of comedy is (though a genre now pretty much extinct), it is only when the conventional gestures are transcended that a true masterpiece results.
To anyone with a passing acquaintance with the genre (i.e. anyone who has read more than one or two plays by either writer), it will not come as a surprise to learn that Scapin is a reascaly servant, or that his tricks are played to bring about the marriage of his young master Octavio against the opposition of Octavio's father. The tricks in fact have little to do with the resolution of the plot, which rests on a conventional (and most unlikely) revelation that the girl he loves is in fact secretly the very woman his father wants him to marry. Not Molière's best.
L'amour médecin
A short introduction by Molière explains a lot about this play; he wrote it in five days in response to a demand from Louis XIV for something to amuse him. The rapid execution is quite apparent; important aspects of the plot are missing, and the opening (a discussion between the arts as to which of them is to entertain the king) is weak. The plot itself is the standard Molière one of the father opposing the marriage of his daughter; what is missing is any motivation for him to do so. She feigns illness; her lover disguises himself as a doctor to visit her; he prescribes a fake wedding to cure her of an obsession with marriage; the revelation that it was a true wedding ends the play.
In the end, it reads like a first draft; amusing enough, but one to work on.
Don Juan
Molière's version of the Don Juan story is cast as a comedy, however bizarre that may sound to those more familiar with the Mozart opera than any other treatment of the tale. The grim material - Don Juan being dragged off to hell when he refuses to repent of his lust even after warnings received from an animated statue - doesn't really fit into a comedy, but does at least provide a change from Molière's standard plot.
The main comic elements used by Molière are the stereotyped device of the imprtinent serving man (in this case aghast at his master's lifestyle but lacking the courage to say so to his face) and Juan's attempt to seduce two very rustic peasant girls simultaneously. Unfortunately, these scenes make the play seem like a poor imitation of a Shakespeare tragedy with the clown scenes particularly inappropriate to the main plot. Basically, for Molière to attempt this was an interesting experiment, but which moved out of his realm of genius.
This may sound like I've been saying that Molière should have written something outside the genre of commedia dell'arte plays, but then I condemn a play which is about as far removed from this genre as is possible. However, Molière was clearly gifted in the style of comedy which he made his own; his greatest plays are those where he subverts the genre and goes beyond its standard plot and character elements, which he usually did by creating a monstrous central character (like Harpagon in The Miser) who completely overbalanced and dominated the play. Don Juan is rather different; it is so far outside the genre, it cannot be said to be transcending it; it is more ignoring it completely.
July 9, 2022
Pretty damn hilarious for a period piece and just as prescient. The lead subject is not as unbelievable as some might expect, considering his behavior mirrors most corporate giants of today--not to mention social media celebrities, influencers, start-up pioneers, or your average 30-40-year-old inspired by the merits of app development. The protagonist's many meltdowns over his money pilfered lead to some entertaining comeuppances once marriage and dowries and servant's clothing are concerned.
July 30, 2022
Moliere's The Miser is on stage in Stratford, ON, in 2022. I have read the play ahead of seeing it performed on August 9.
It is a great example of a Roman comedy adapted to the manners of 17th Century Paris. A wacky play.
It is a great example of a Roman comedy adapted to the manners of 17th Century Paris. A wacky play.
August 9, 2023
A book of plays by Molière including The School for Wives, The School for Wives Criticized, Don Juan, The Miser, and The Hypochondriac. A wonderfully-entertaining collection with staying power by the greatest comedy playwright of his time.
September 27, 2021
I usually don’t write reviews for books I read for school, but this was a refreshing delight. Loved it back in the elementary school and I still love it now.
April 10, 2022
What a treat.
November 14, 2022
Mildly amusing rather than hilarious.
March 21, 2023
4 school!
May 7, 2023
This isn’t the same collection I read, I couldn’t find the exact one. But Molière is fun, though probably needs to be seen on stage for the full impact
May 11, 2023
why did i actually like this
August 4, 2022
They say (whoever “they” are) that plays are meant to be watched rather than read, and I think that is probably the case with these plays by Molière. This collection included mostly his “second tier” plays (e.g. it’s lacking Tartuffe and The Misanthrope), so I don’t feel like I got a good impression of the playwright at the height of his skill. As it was, there was some mildly amusing cleverness that probably would have popped a lot more on stage. Also, I’m pretty sure that he ripped off borrowed heavily from Aeschylus at a few points.
October 28, 2013
Moliere is like comfort food, although he has about the range of half a Shakespeare play, it is fun to return again and again to that range. These are the first plays of his I've read that were not translated by Richard Wilbur and, other than Don Juan, the only prose plays I have read. In this volume I read:
"The School for Wives Criticized": This short play is more of a philosophical/literary critical dialogue responding to critics of "The School of Wives." Essentially without plot, Moliere called it a "dissertation," it is a dialogue between dim-witted critics of "The School for Wives" and witter, smarter people defending it--and defending Moliere and his sense of comedy. It was originally performed with "The School for Wives."
"The Miser": I have seen this one before but it was a pleasure to read, it is about a miser who is in love with the same younger woman as his son. It features hilarious misunderstandings and coincidences, like the miser lending money at usurious interest rates to his son through an intermediary and unbeknownst to either of them. Of course with the help of clever servants it all works out in the end.
"The Hypochondriac": I have also seen this one before, although never performed with the "ballets" that act as a prologue, conclusion, and entr'acte in the original--and are truly quite funny and create an interesting juxtaposition with the play itself. Although Moliere's last play (he died coughing up blood in the role of the hypochondriac), it feels less sophisticated than many others, including The Miser, with Argan (the hypochondriac) considerably less multi-dimensional in his foibles than Harpagon (the Miser). The plot is similar, although in this case the selfish father is trying to steer his daughter towards marrying a doctor who could help treat him, while his daughter is in love with someone else. With the help once again of a clever servant and a ruse here Argan plays dead to learn what his family really thinks of him the story is, once again, resolved in a comic and happy manner.
(I skipped "School for Wives" because it was a prose translation and Wilbur has an excellent verse one, in fact I don't know why anyone would read prose translations of Moliere's verse plays. I also skipped "Don Juan" which I recently read in the Wilbur translation, as far as I know his only translation of a Moliere prose play.)
"The School for Wives Criticized": This short play is more of a philosophical/literary critical dialogue responding to critics of "The School of Wives." Essentially without plot, Moliere called it a "dissertation," it is a dialogue between dim-witted critics of "The School for Wives" and witter, smarter people defending it--and defending Moliere and his sense of comedy. It was originally performed with "The School for Wives."
"The Miser": I have seen this one before but it was a pleasure to read, it is about a miser who is in love with the same younger woman as his son. It features hilarious misunderstandings and coincidences, like the miser lending money at usurious interest rates to his son through an intermediary and unbeknownst to either of them. Of course with the help of clever servants it all works out in the end.
"The Hypochondriac": I have also seen this one before, although never performed with the "ballets" that act as a prologue, conclusion, and entr'acte in the original--and are truly quite funny and create an interesting juxtaposition with the play itself. Although Moliere's last play (he died coughing up blood in the role of the hypochondriac), it feels less sophisticated than many others, including The Miser, with Argan (the hypochondriac) considerably less multi-dimensional in his foibles than Harpagon (the Miser). The plot is similar, although in this case the selfish father is trying to steer his daughter towards marrying a doctor who could help treat him, while his daughter is in love with someone else. With the help once again of a clever servant and a ruse here Argan plays dead to learn what his family really thinks of him the story is, once again, resolved in a comic and happy manner.
(I skipped "School for Wives" because it was a prose translation and Wilbur has an excellent verse one, in fact I don't know why anyone would read prose translations of Moliere's verse plays. I also skipped "Don Juan" which I recently read in the Wilbur translation, as far as I know his only translation of a Moliere prose play.)
February 18, 2024
The Bourgeois gentilhomme would get five stars by itself, when you read it you sense the timelessness of humour reverberating down the centuries -it is really the funniest thing I have ever read, and will probably be the funniest thing I'll ever read in my life. You see the Bourgeois gentilhomme in comedy now, drawing on the same fundamentals that Molière put on for the Louis the fourteenth of France. But rounding down to four stars because of the other plays in this collection, which were clever etc but repetitive. The Bourgeois gentilhomme probably a masterpiece and has changed my outlook on reading plays. I didn't 'believe' in reading plays before (whatever that means) but now think I should probably read Shakespeare.
February 8, 2011
It is amazing how Molière's humor is just as funny today as in his own time. Any writer who makes use of humor would be wise to study him, plus he/she/it will have a great time doing so. Molière can make nothing funnier than our own failings, the parts of our humanity that fall short. Still, I think Molière evidences a great amount of compassion for humanity, a certain hope. After all, why try to convince people if they are too dumb to listen? They just wouldn't get the joke.
October 18, 2014
How can something so light can leave behind a 450 year old impression? For I doubt Moliere was the inventor of the techniques of these five plays, or, perhaps better said, one work written five times.
Read
July 12, 2011Not exactly what I am reading, but close enough. This was a delight to read
Read
October 9, 2012Read: The Miser and The Would-Be Gentleman
May 24, 2014
What a hoot! The plot is lame, the outcome contrived, yet the dialog, and the characterization of the Miser make for pure delight.
November 24, 2015
Had to read it for school. Quite good, really contrasted.
April 3, 2016
Wonderful farces with a great sense of humor that still resonates centuries later. I would have preferred a fresher, more up-to-date translation but it was fine nonetheless.
May 28, 2016
Read it for /The Miser/, and it is fairly hilarious while still being worth considering. I'd seen it quoted a fair number of times, but now I can't seem to remember where. Still, worth the read.
June 24, 2016
I prefer the Oxford World Classics edition translated by George Graveley and revised by Ian Maclean.
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