Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, more commonly known as Moliere, had the privilege of being a protege of the Sun King, Louis XIV at the time of prosperity and endless lavish feasts at court. The theatre in the 17th century Paris however was not a common entertainment as it is today. There were only two established theatres: Hotel de Bourgogne, which specialised in tragedies, and Theatre du Marais known for performances of baroque machine plays. Later, a third theatre was established as a result of a merge between Moliere's company newly arrived in Paris, and Comedie Italienne whose previous place of residence - Petit Bourbon was destroyed. They were now commissioned by the king and based in Palais Royal. Throughout all this time Palais Royal, together with the Louvre (and initially Petit Bourbon) were open to theatre companies for occasional performance under king's consent.
The audiences can be divided into two broad groups. First, there were middle class merchants and professionals, occupying mostly the cheapest places in the stalls. Secondly, in the more expensive balconies and boxes, there was aristocracy and wealthy bourgeois. Despite middle-class audiences being the most numerous, they had little say on what passed as a success or a failure. It were the court members for whom the plays were written, and who would have a deciding voice in criticism. 17th century court life in France was mostly about appearances and the theatre had to reflect that. Here, Moliere risked getting into a hell of a trouble should he not satisfy the tastes of the pretentious upper classes. And he often did not, which - as one may expect - did earn him considerable mishap.
Moliere, by satirizing different groups of society, and occasionally specific individuals, not only caused a lot of stir at the court, but also introduced a new style of comedy - one that was later called the comedy of character. The main characteristics of which, according to Theodore W. Halten are: incongruity of character - tension in a spectator caused by combination of two contrasting qualities or large disparity between expectation and reality; automatism of character - when "individuals lose their human flexibility, become mechanical in repetition [as] puppets" (such as Orgon, who manipulated by others switches between extremes in his behaviour); plot - "basic patterns depict a character who deviates from the norm or who is out of place" and revolve about a "happy idea" (131-37). The language is extremely important especially in high comedy, and to generate laughter it uses techniques such as teasing and sophisticated dialogues which smartly build up the tension. The lower comedy and farce use linguistic devices such as: "puns, repetitions, tag lines, wisecracks, insults, vulgarisms, and deformed language", which are not absent in great masters like Moliere or Shakespeare - mostly in the speech of lower class characters (151).
Aside from the above mentioned qualities, Moliere's work was a break-through regarding its genre, in that it "combined the national tradition of farce with non-French traditions such as Roman tragedy, the Italian commedia erudita and commedia dell'arte as well as the Spanish comedies of the siglo de oro to create a kind of all-embracing European comedy of the century" as Erika Fischer-Lichte summarizes (105).
Tartuffe, also known as The Hypocrite or The Impostor, first premiered in 1664 and earned great enthusiasm from the king. However, the criticised target group - fake devotees - which held a lot of power in the days, felt threatened and persuaded the king to ban the play. Pierre Rouille - a member of a secret catholic celebrity society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, appointed Moliere an official "demon in the flesh dressed as a man" and demanded his burning at stake (Fischer 105). Only after third revision the play was again allowed on stage. That was in 1669, and this is the only version that is known to survive today (one of the original copies is available in Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag).
The plot revolves around a cone man Tartuffe, who passing himself as a pious clergy man deceives the head of his hosting family Orgon, despite everyone's disapproval. It is only when Orgon catches Tartuffe making advances towards his wife Elmire, that he sees through the deceit. The play starts with Madame Pernelle - Orgon's mother, who introduces the characters by criticizing everyone in the family, yet praising Tartuffe. She, next to Orgon, is the most zealous defender of the hypocrite and the last one to disbelieve his tricks. Only by the maid Dorine - who displays sensibility and wisdom (paradoxically more than her upper-class employers) through witty and sharp ironic comments - is Tartuffe criticised overtly. She acts as the play's moral barometer when Orgon decides to marry off his daughter Mariane to the detestable bigot, rather than to her true love Valere. Dorine has an ally in Demis - Orgon's son who is determined to expose Tartuffe, because if Dorine can not marry Valere, Demis stands no chance with his sister whom he is in love with (unfortunately, he only manages to get himself disinherited). Orgon's blindness to his well-meaning family pushes him even further in his devotion to Tartuffism (my own neologism), to the point he gets evicted from his own house. Here Moliere saves the plot with deux ex machina: in the last minute a king's envoy arrives just to announce his majesty's brilliance in seeing through Tartuffe's mischief. Orgon regains his property, Tartuffe is arrested, young lovers reunited and the king presented as the wise and forgiving patron of his subjects.
Yet, managing in praising the king and his court, and despite all the obstacles in producing the final approved version of the play in a highly controlled and censored court environment, Moliere manages to sharply criticise both hypocrisy, fake religious zealousness which serves as veil for covering greed and lust (it is the latter that ultimately betrays Tartuffe), as well as gullibility of petty bourgeois who desperately want to fit in. Larry F. Norman in Moliere as Satirist describes the mechanism that allows the playwright reach his means. On one hand, Moliere skilfully blends the "particular and the general" and the "individual and universal". On the other hand, he "turns a literary form - satire - into a dramatic theatrical machine" (60). The multi-layered meanings created by the play between those extremes always leave at least one more interpretation possible and keep the critics in the dark. Moliere applied the technique of immediate shifts from the personal to general as in defending Tartuffe - it is not aimed at the Church but at individual hypocrites. Yet, should any one feel offended - he will only confirm the alleged accusations, for they were aimed at the general.
Works Cited
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. History of European Drama and Theatre. London: Routledge, 2002.
Halten, Theodore W. Orientation to the Theatre. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1987.
Norman, Larry F. "Moliere as Satirist." The Cambridge Companion to Moliere. Ed. Andrew Calder, David Bradby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
Moliere, by satirizing different groups of society, and occasionally specific individuals, not only caused a lot of stir at the court, but also introduced a new style of comedy - one that was later called the comedy of character. The main characteristics of which, according to Theodore W. Halten are: incongruity of character - tension in a spectator caused by combination of two contrasting qualities or large disparity between expectation and reality; automatism of character - when "individuals lose their human flexibility, become mechanical in repetition [as] puppets" (such as Orgon, who manipulated by others switches between extremes in his behaviour); plot - "basic patterns depict a character who deviates from the norm or who is out of place" and revolve about a "happy idea" (131-37). The language is extremely important especially in high comedy, and to generate laughter it uses techniques such as teasing and sophisticated dialogues which smartly build up the tension. The lower comedy and farce use linguistic devices such as: "puns, repetitions, tag lines, wisecracks, insults, vulgarisms, and deformed language", which are not absent in great masters like Moliere or Shakespeare - mostly in the speech of lower class characters (151).
Aside from the above mentioned qualities, Moliere's work was a break-through regarding its genre, in that it "combined the national tradition of farce with non-French traditions such as Roman tragedy, the Italian commedia erudita and commedia dell'arte as well as the Spanish comedies of the siglo de oro to create a kind of all-embracing European comedy of the century" as Erika Fischer-Lichte summarizes (105).
Tartuffe, also known as The Hypocrite or The Impostor, first premiered in 1664 and earned great enthusiasm from the king. However, the criticised target group - fake devotees - which held a lot of power in the days, felt threatened and persuaded the king to ban the play. Pierre Rouille - a member of a secret catholic celebrity society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, appointed Moliere an official "demon in the flesh dressed as a man" and demanded his burning at stake (Fischer 105). Only after third revision the play was again allowed on stage. That was in 1669, and this is the only version that is known to survive today (one of the original copies is available in Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag).
The plot revolves around a cone man Tartuffe, who passing himself as a pious clergy man deceives the head of his hosting family Orgon, despite everyone's disapproval. It is only when Orgon catches Tartuffe making advances towards his wife Elmire, that he sees through the deceit. The play starts with Madame Pernelle - Orgon's mother, who introduces the characters by criticizing everyone in the family, yet praising Tartuffe. She, next to Orgon, is the most zealous defender of the hypocrite and the last one to disbelieve his tricks. Only by the maid Dorine - who displays sensibility and wisdom (paradoxically more than her upper-class employers) through witty and sharp ironic comments - is Tartuffe criticised overtly. She acts as the play's moral barometer when Orgon decides to marry off his daughter Mariane to the detestable bigot, rather than to her true love Valere. Dorine has an ally in Demis - Orgon's son who is determined to expose Tartuffe, because if Dorine can not marry Valere, Demis stands no chance with his sister whom he is in love with (unfortunately, he only manages to get himself disinherited). Orgon's blindness to his well-meaning family pushes him even further in his devotion to Tartuffism (my own neologism), to the point he gets evicted from his own house. Here Moliere saves the plot with deux ex machina: in the last minute a king's envoy arrives just to announce his majesty's brilliance in seeing through Tartuffe's mischief. Orgon regains his property, Tartuffe is arrested, young lovers reunited and the king presented as the wise and forgiving patron of his subjects.
Yet, managing in praising the king and his court, and despite all the obstacles in producing the final approved version of the play in a highly controlled and censored court environment, Moliere manages to sharply criticise both hypocrisy, fake religious zealousness which serves as veil for covering greed and lust (it is the latter that ultimately betrays Tartuffe), as well as gullibility of petty bourgeois who desperately want to fit in. Larry F. Norman in Moliere as Satirist describes the mechanism that allows the playwright reach his means. On one hand, Moliere skilfully blends the "particular and the general" and the "individual and universal". On the other hand, he "turns a literary form - satire - into a dramatic theatrical machine" (60). The multi-layered meanings created by the play between those extremes always leave at least one more interpretation possible and keep the critics in the dark. Moliere applied the technique of immediate shifts from the personal to general as in defending Tartuffe - it is not aimed at the Church but at individual hypocrites. Yet, should any one feel offended - he will only confirm the alleged accusations, for they were aimed at the general.
Works Cited
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. History of European Drama and Theatre. London: Routledge, 2002.
Halten, Theodore W. Orientation to the Theatre. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1987.
Norman, Larry F. "Moliere as Satirist." The Cambridge Companion to Moliere. Ed. Andrew Calder, David Bradby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,