Molière: The Learned Ladies (1672)

Translation: A.R. Waller (1907); updated by Steven Pimlott & Colin Chambers (1996)
Edition: Nick Hern, 1996
Review number: 493

Molière's last but one play is not among his best known and is perhaps unlikely to become so given its subject (the absurdity of women pretending to philosophical knowledge - though it could easily be present as an attack on those in general who pretend to be learned). As the type of knowledge which is associated with intelligence has also changed (from Greek and Latin to science), it may also seem to a modern audience to attack its target rather obliquely. (Mind you, it would be easy to write a modern version of this play using the kind of rubbish people often talk about science.)

Another reason why this play is less well known is that in many ways it is very similar to the harder hitting Tartuffe: both plays are about hypocrites whom one parent wants to force a daughter to marry rather than the eminently suitable young man that she loves. The hypocrisy is of a different kind, pretending to excellence as a poet rather than religious piety (and the poetry he produces is a parody of some by Molière's enemy Abbé Coth). The Learned Ladies is in parts very funny, and has some interesting characters. (I liked the elder daughter Armande, who rejected her lover for the pure life of philosophy only to become piqued with jealousy when he transfers his attentions to her sister.)

The translation is excellent, written in accordance with a theory that the best way to achieve a similar feel to the original's for a native speaker is to make the translation an imitation of a similar writer in the new language. In this case, Waller chose Sheridan as the model, and has produced an excellent version in his style. The updating has removed any old fashioned phrases (I noticed none); my only quibble is that I don't think that Sheridan is all that like Molière. In particular, I feel that the commedia tradition was far more important to and present in the work of the French author.

Molière: Le Malade Imaginaire (1673)

Translations: John Wood, 1959 and Martin Sorrell, 1994 (both under the title The Hypochondriac)
Editions: Penguin, 1969; Nick Hern, 1994
Review number: 182
Review amended: 4 May 1999

Le Malade Imaginaire is the greatest and best-known of Molière's attacks on doctors. Like many of his other well-known plays, it is the exaggerated nature of the main character which provides the comedy; Argan is hypochondria personified in the same way that Harpagon is miserliness and Tartuffe hypocritical piety.

From the start of the play, with Argan in his bed adding up his doctors' bills in between injections and doses of medicine, we realise that he is soon going to be ruined by his hypochondria despite his riches, encouraged by his doctors who are anxious to make money out of him while they can - as long as he can withstand their ministrations. In order to be able to afford doctors for longer, he decides to marry his elder daughter Béline to Thomas Diafiorus, the son of one of his senior doctors, just qualified as a doctor himself. This is to secure himself cheap treatment as a member of the family, but unfortunately Thomas is not really the sort of man to appeal to any woman, let alone Béline, who has already fallen in love with another man. Stuffed full of useless pseudo-knowledge, which he appears to still believe, he seems never to have encountered a woman before (except on the dissection table). He is far more a figure of fun than the older physicians who use Latin and Greek philosophical terms only to confuse their victims. It is only when Toinette, Béline's pert maidservant, disguises herself as a doctor that Argan's family is able to begin to wean him from his hypochondria and persuade him to accept Béline's marriage to her lover Cléante.

The primitive state of medicine in Molière's time was one of the main reasons why doctors were such a target for his dislike and satire. When their cures were so dicey, it often seemed better to try and cope with an illness without them rather than risk being killed by the attempted cure. (Argan's brother says as much in the play.) The doctors used their pseudo-schientific language to justify their guesswork, to confuse their patients and convince them of their superior knowledge. This is of course a method used very commonly by those on the fringes of science (and a desire to impress by using technical language is not unknown elsewhere), because of the way that science is venerated by those who do not understand much of it. This is particularly true of the "science" touted by the New Age movement, even though that movement is generally anti-scientific in its worldview. This is particularly true of astrology, though other pseudo-sciences which may contain a grain of truth also do it, which is a pity since it tends to prevent any genuine scientific investigation into what may be happening. (I'm thinking about such alternative medicene as acupuncture and homeopathy, for example.)

The two translations show very well the differences between a fairly academic translation, typical of Penguin Classics, and one designed for performance, as the Nick Hern series are.

Martin Sorrell keeps the traditional title of the play, and it is hard to feel that John Wood improves upon it. It is the illnesses which are imaginary, after all, and The Imaginary Invalid really imples that the invalid is imaginary, rather than the invalidism. (Of course, the invalid actually is imaginary - he is only a character in a play - but that's moving into philosophical regions rather beyond what I suspect the title is intended to convey.)

Where Sorrell does make changes is in the medical language. He updates this to more modern-sounding scientific gobbledegook, on the grounds that our knowledge of Greek and Latin tends to be less than that of a seventeenth century audience. I am not sure this is really a problem, since the modern medical vocabulary is still full of terms borrowed from Latin and Greek. What has happened, though, is that a lot of seventeenth century medical language has passed into common speech. The philosophical idea behind medicine at the period was that the body contained four humours, and these needed to be kept in balance for good physical and mental health. The dominant humour determined your personality, and the names of the humours have become common descriptions of emotion or personality: bile, choler, phlegmatic, sanguine and so on. Doctors today also do not talk about astrology; the casting of horoscopes is not considered a valid method of diagnosis. Thus, I think there is an argument for updating the language, but it is not the one advanced by Sorrell in his introduction. (His updating works well, whatever the motivation, making the play much more graceful than Wood's straight translation.)

Molière: A Doctor In Spite of Himself (1666)

Translation: John Wood, 1959
Edition: Penguin, 1969
Review number: 182

A Doctor in Spite of Himself is a short, farcical attack on the medical profession, on the ignorant doctors of Molière's time who tricked the unwary with long words and bogus science (they are one of Molière's favourite targets). He uses his standard plot of the man (Géronte) who will not allow his daughter to marry, but the centre of this play is not Géronte's family but the false doctor Sganarelle. Géronte's daughter Lucinde appears to be ill, refusing to speak to anyone, and so Géronte sends out two of his servants to find a doctor. They encounter Sganarelle's wife, who tells them that her good-for-nothing husband is in fact a great doctor; she recounts some (imaginary) amazing cures he has accomplished. She tells them that he is also incredibly modest, and won't allow anyone to call him a doctor; at the moment, because of his love of humble occupations, he is in the forest collecting firewood (this is, of course, so they won't be surprised when he shows no knowledge of being a doctor). The two servants go off and find him, and end up beating him up until he agrees that he is a doctor and that he will treat Lucinde.

As in L'amour Médecin, her cure is to be united with her lover, but not before much fun is had making the medical profession ridiculous, and not before Sganarelle realises that medicine is the career for him: you make your money regardless of the quality of your work, whether the patient lives or dies.

A Doctor in Spite of Himself is one of the funniest of Molière's shorter plays, much more polished and finished than the others I've read.

Molière: Tartuffe, or The Impostor (1664)

Translation: John Wood, 1959
Edition: Penguin, 1969
Review number: 180

Like The Misanthrope, Tartuffe is about hypocrisy; unlike the later play, Tartuffe aroused great indignation, and it was only after several re-writes (comemmorated in several prefaces) that the play was allowed to be performed in public. The Misanthrope was, in fact, written during the period that Tartuffe was banned.

The reason for the differing reactions to the two plays is based on the way that Tartuffe shows his hypocrisy: through feigned religious piety. Not having the earlier versions which originally aroused the anger of powerful group (apparently mainly strongly pious lay people rather than the church), one can only guess at what exactly in Molière's play was so outrageous. He specifically denies in one of the prefaces that he intended any attack on true religion; his target was those who pretend true religion. You do have to admit that the more pious members of Orgon's family, he himself and his mother, seem to be portrayed as particularly stupid.

The plot of Tartuffe is fairly simple. Tartuffe has wormed his way into the family of the wealthy Orgon, who believes his assumed piety and looks on him as a saint. Orgon will not believe the warnings of his family, all of whom see through Tartuffe with the exception of his mother. Orgon now tries to force his daughter Marianne to marry Tartuffe, breaking a contract he has already made to marry her to the man she really loves. Tartuffe attempts to seduce Marianne's stepmother Elmire; it is only when she arranges for him to repeat his propositions with Orgon hidden under a table that he realises Tartuffe's true nature. When Orgon tries to throw Tartuffe out of the house, the latter goes to the king with some documents to support an accusation of treason against Orgon (they are documents entrusted to Orgon by a friend who had fled the country). Just when it looks as though Orgon will lose everything, the king intervenes; he has recognised Tartuffe as a scoundrel and throws him into prison instead.

The flattery of the king by Molière and the way he is used as a deus ex machine is the only real weakness of this otherwise great play. The whole thing comes so close to a very unhappy ending that there was very little else that Molière could do to arrange the outcome required in a comedy of the day, intended to be a piece of light entertainment.

Molière: The Sicilian, or Love the Painter (1667)

Translation: John Wood, 1959
Edition: Penguin, 1969
Review number: 178

The Sicilian is one of Molière's one act entertainments dashed off for the pleasure of Louis XIV, complete with scenes for dancers and musical interludes. Despite their slight plots, they are usually fun to see or read, and The Sicilian is no exception.

Adrastes and Don Pedro are both in love with Isidore, a slave girl owned by Don Pedro. He has freed her so that they can get married, but his intense jealousy means that she has even less freedom than she had before. Meanwhile, Adrastes is plotting to gain opportunities to spend time with Isidore, which he does by pretending to be a painter commissioned to paint her portrait by Don Pedro. The best scene in the play is the sitting for this, consisting of outrageous complements poaid by Adrastes to Isidore, to Don Pedro's jealous rage, not assuaged by Adraste's assurances that as a Frenchman he pays such compliments to every woman he meets. The play ends as Adrastes abducts the willing Isidore, leaving Don Pedro furious.

The play leaves, at least on the page, the impression of not really having an ending; you could easily envisage further acts detailing Don Pedro's attempts at revenge. The introduction of a new character, a magistrate who is a friend of Don Pedro's, in the last lines of the play makes such a continuation seem even more likely. Yet what we have is quite delightful; you are certainly left wanting more.

Molière: The Misanthrope (1661)

Translation: John Wood, 1959
Edition: Penguin, 1969
Review number: 177

The Misanthrope has two juvenile leads, who represent different aspects of human nature - indeed, as surmised by John Wood in his introduction, different aspects of the personality of Molière himself.

On the one hand, we have Alceste, disgusted with the hypocrisy of the world, who has declared that there is no good in man, and who has vowed never to lie about the virtues of others. He is, of course, the misanthrope of the title. This attitude gets him into a considerable amount of trouble, including a law suit which he loses because he refuses to flatter the judge and the enmity of Oronte, whose poetry he cannot bring himself to praise. His big problem is that he is in love with the flirtatious and shallow Célimène (as is his rival Oronte), and continues to be so despite his knowledge of all her faults, ones which he despises in others.

On the other hand, we have his friend Philinte, who has the instincts of a courtier, always ready to find a word in praise of others. Molière manages to make him sufficiently sympathetic that the audience will not blame or despise him for this in the way that it will some of the other characters. Nevertheless, the main interest for both Molière and for us is the character of Alceste, which is only natural given that there are more possibilities for comedy in a character who is different from everyone else around him (and from the audience too - a major part of the point of the play), and who refuses to moderate his principles in any way whatsoever.

We all know both the impulse to be the courtier and that to reject all hypocrisy, and this is one reason why The Misanthrope succeeds so well. John Wood describes it as Molière's masterpiece, and that is certainly a judgment that his translation bears out.

Molière: Don Juan (1665)

Translation: John Wood, 1953
Edition: Penguin, 1984
Review number: 158

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.

Molière: L'amour Médecin (1665)

Translation: As Love's The Best Doctor by John Wood, 1953
Edition: Penguin, 1984
Review number: 156

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.

Molière: The Miser (1668)

Translation: John Wood, 1953
Edition: Penguin, 1984
Review number: 155

The Miser is one of Molière's best known plays, an original variation on the commedia dell'arte models which form the basis for his work. The elements are the young lovers withing to marry - a brother and sister with their chosen spouses - who are unable to because of the opposition of a parent. By making the reason for Harpagon's refusal to let them marry his extreme miserliness, Molière is able to ring the changes on his threadbare plot (shared by almost all his plays).

Harpagon dominates the play, and is splendidly grotesque. He is entirely one dimensional, avarice to the core - always wanting to run to check his store of money, yet afraid to do so in case thieves see him do it. There is a wonderful scene where he is trying to cut the costs of a banquet he wishes to hold in honour of his own impending marriage - to the young woman his son loves.

As in The Would-Be Gentleman, the idiosyncrasies of the title role are what raise the play above the standard attained by Molière's less well known plays.

Molière: Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671)

Translation: As That Scoundrel Scapin, by John Wood, 1953
Edition: Penguin, 1984
Review number: 153

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.

Molière: The Would-Be Gentleman (1670)

Translation: John Wood, 1953
Edition: Penguin
Review number: 136

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.