Misanthrope / Tartuffe

Clichés are a strange thing to judge an older text by, since it's often hard to say whether something that is commonplace and tired today wasn't fresh and revolutionary at the time. While I can't be sure about how new the tropes used by Molière in these two plays were when they were written, I know that they struck me as stale when I read them today.

Tartuffe features a bumbling, foolish, and quick to anger husband and a clever wife trying to undue his mistakes, a Homer and Marge Simpson for 17th century France. The antagonist is the titular Tartuffe, a hypocrite who hides in the mantle of piousness while secretly lusting after both wealth and a married woman. It's never believable that Tartuffe hoodwinked anyone, as he's only ever show more portrayed as an idiot only a hair's-breadth more clever than the bumbling husband. The play really beats you over the head with its message, that you should avoid being suckered by deception or self-deception, and that all that glitters isn't gold. Tartuffe's use of religion to mask his true intention may have been revolutionary at the time, but nowadays it's hard to go on an online forum without someone drawing the same connection between the church and deceit of the masses. Molière uses a royal deus ex machina to shoehorn in a happy ending.

The Misanthrope is slightly more interesting, mostly because of how it largely refuses to give the expected ending. There are some interesting characters here, but instead of exploring the worldview of a man who detests people, or one who shamelessly flatters everyone equally, or someone who can't restrain herself from flirting with everyone available, Molière treats these as amusing personalities for the play and nothing more. Large swaths of this play are characters just flat out refusing to communicate (something that is played for comedic effect in Tartuffe, but more briefly) and using this method to create dramatic tension has always rubbed me the wrong way. It's something that occasionally happens in real life, but rarely, and not usually for an extended conversation. It's a very artificial way to put two characters at odds with each other, and I take it as a sign of bad writing. Again, though, perhaps it wasn't so tired in the 17th century.

There are some good points to the plays as well, for instance women aren't passive objects but active participants in both plays, and Molière is gifted at crafting dialogue. I'm sure a production of either of these plays could be quite funny. Overall though, I expected something more from one of France's greatest playwrights. As Molière wrote:

Everything, madam, may be praised or blamed,
And each is right, in proper time and season.

Others have loved this play for hundreds of years, and I'm sure many will continue to do so for many years to come, but for me I'm afraid Molière's season has passed. show less

Okay, I like tragedy better than comedy. Sorry if that makes me all emo.

These two plays by Moliere...I like them more than most comedies. I like them more than Shakespeare's comedies, and I like them at least as much as Aristophanes. They're very focused: each presents its case and makes it. I appreciate that. I suspect Alceste and Tartuffe and Dorine will stick with me as eponymous characters. But all that said, it's not like it changed my life. I only liked them. Sorry, French people?

Read The Misanthrope and was surprised by how it held me. Generally, I find plays very dead on the page. Not this one. Moliere's keen wit and sharp characterizations comes through beautifully. He has this very light touch. And here's the funny thing--the play's in verse! Rhyming couplets for the most part. Here's part of what translator Wilbur says about it: "In this play, society itself is indicted, and though Alceste's criticisms are indiscriminate, they are not unjustified...." Let me add that Alceste thinks of himself as the only moral visionary about. Everyone else is ruined by the various social fraudulences of the day (1666). There are others who see through this faux civility, too, of course, but Alceste is the one whose pride show more spurs him on to ever greater truth telling. If the play weren't so funny, and Wilbur's verse so sharp, Alceste would be a very great bore indeed. Tartuffe I liked too. It's about this con man who, playing the role of the pious Christian, wheedles his way into the heart of a prosperous Paris householder. That man, Orgon, is so taken in by the fraud Tartuffe that he allows it to disrupt his very large household. But then he's caught trying to seduce the lady of the house. That moment of exposure provides enormous pleasure. Though the meter tends to slow the reader down a bit, both plays read very fast, about an hour each. show less

Moliere has long been on my to-read list because his comedies were on a list of "100 Significant Books" I was determined to read through. The introduction in one of the books of his plays says that of his "thirty-two comedies... a good third are among the comic masterpieces of world literature." The plays are surprisingly accessible and amusing, even if by and large they strike me as frothy and light compared to comedies by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Wilde, Shaw and Rostand. But I may be at a disadvantage. I'm a native New Yorker, and looking back it's amazing how many classic plays I've seen on stage, plenty I've seen in filmed adaptation and many I've studied in school. Yet I've never encountered Moliere before this. Several show more productions of Shakespeare live and filmed are definitely responsible for me love of his plays. Reading a play is really no substitute for seeing it--the text is only scaffolding. So that might be why I don't rate these plays higher. I admit I also found Wilbur's much recommended translation off-putting at first. The format of rhyming couplets seemed sing-song and trite, as if I was reading the lyrics to a musical rather than a play. As I read more I did get used to that form, but I do suspect these are the kinds of works that play much better on stage than on the page.

Misanthrope - this was the first Moliere play I ever read, and arguably the most famous of all his plays. The introduction in what might seem an oxymoron calls it a comic King Lear, and I can see that side of it. As comic as this might read, it is basically a tragedy about the young man Alceste, the "misanthrope" of the play, who makes such a fetish of always being honest he alienates everyone around him. The character I enjoyed the most was definitely the malicious Arsinoe who plays the prude. The catty scenes between her and Alceste's love Celimene is particularly hilarious.

Tartuffe - of the five Moliere plays I now have read, this one, about over-religiosity and hypocrisy is my favorite. The title character Tartuffe is a conman who prays on the religious sensibility and man-crush of his patron Orgon. The scene in particular where Orgon responds to reports of his wife's illness by repeatedly asking, "But what about Tartuffe" nearly had me laughing out loud. The character of the pert and shrewd lady's maid Dorine is particularly delightful. show less

This time around I only read The Misanthrope. It is, of course, an absolute pleasure from the first rhyming couplet to the last. It is even more dialogue-driven than most Moliere plays, perhaps somewhat more of a discourse and debate on manners and society and a little bit less of a madcap plot--although that is not entirely lacking either. And Alceste, the misanthrope of the title, is a particularly memorable figure.

This time around I only read The Misanthrope. It is, of course, an absolute pleasure from the first rhyming couplet to the last. It is even more dialogue-driven than most Moliere plays, perhaps somewhat more of a discourse and debate on manners and society and a little bit less of a madcap plot--although that is not entirely lacking either. And Alceste, the misanthrope of the title, is a particularly memorable figure.

Hilarious, and that's all there is to it.