Some scattered thoughts on Molière and plays

1/ Some time last year, I read The School for Wives (in Richard Wilbur’s translation). What I didn’t know was that the play was a scandal at the time, virtuous people lost their minds, so Molière wrote a play in response, called The School for Wives Criticised. The attacks continued: a journalist called Donneau de Visé published Zelinde or The True School for Wives Criticised; then the following month, a young playwright called Boursault put on The Painter’s Portrait. Then Molière launched a counter-attack: a play called The Impromptu at Versailles.

I didn’t know any of these things! The French are mad. 

This reminds me of the chain of novels in 19th century Russia: Turgenev published Fathers and Sons, exploring some ideas hot in Russian society at the time; Chernyshevsky wrote What Is to Be Done? as a direct response; Dostoyevsky then wrote Notes from Underground, to criticise the ideas in Chernyshevsky’s (apparently dreadful) novel. The argument was much bigger: Dostoyevsky continued exploring and attacking certain ideas in his later novels; Tolstoy wrote something called What Is to be Done?; Chernyshevsky’s book influenced many people including Lenin, who wrote a pamphlet with the same title; Nabokov lampooned Chernyshevsky in various books, especially in The Gift; there would have been other novels I didn’t know about… but Turgenev – Chernyshevsky – Dostoyevsky was the main chain. They were debating ideas through novels! Lunatics. But now I’ve learnt that Molière and his critics were arguing through plays. 

2/ Recently, someone on Twitter asked whom you would pick if you could read only 10 authors for the rest of your life (I know, it’s one of those stupid questions on the hellsite). Molière was one of my choices. 

I love that Molière knows human beings are all silly and irrational and ridiculous, but he depicts people with such warmth and humour. And he is so funny. 

3/ I don’t have a lot to say about The School of Wives Criticised and An Impromptu at Versailles, which I just read in Maya Slater’s translation. But this passage is interesting: 

“DORANTE You writers make me laugh with your rules: you make people look small if they don’t know them, and you knock the rest of us silly with them—it happens every day. To hear you talk, you’d think that the rules of dramatic art were the greatest mysteries in the world. And yet they’re nothing but a few simple observations, based on common sense, on what can prevent such writings from giving pleasure. With that same common sense that inspired those remarks in the first place, you can come to the same conclusions nowadays, quite simply, without the help of Horace and Aristotle. I wonder—isn’t the greatest rule of all that you must give pleasure to the public? And if a play has done that, hasn’t it followed the right path? How can a whole audience be mistaken about such things? Isn’t a person the best judge of his own enjoyment?” (The School of Wives Criticised, Scene 6)

Compared to the plays of 17th century France, the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in England have little regard for the classical unities (unity of action, unity of time, unity of time) and other rules. I also argued with someone (on the hellsite) recently about Shakespeare; he said the plays were carelessly written and full of imperfections. But who cares? The concept of perfection in literature is, to me, overrated. Who cares about some flaws and imperfections when we’re facing greatness? Who cares that certain rules are violated when these visionary authors have great ambitions and experiment with new things?  

I’m now imagining Shakespeare writing a play to respond to his critics though. 

4/ Recently I argued again with the “Plays are meant to be seen, not read” crowd. People just love to repeat mantras, don’t they? No matter how well you advocate for reading plays, no matter how many times you explain the differences between plays and film scripts, these idiots still appear and spout the same irritating bollocks. 

The thing is, I don’t even believe that these philistines go to the theatre often. I don’t believe they watched more plays than I read them last year. I have read 9 Molière plays so far. Do those people know more Molière plays? I don’t think so. 

But that’s enough ranting for today. If you haven’t read Molière, you should.