The Cambridge Companion to Moliere

by Edited by David Bradby , Andrew Calder

• ISBN13: 9780521546652
• ISBN10: 0521546656
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A detailed introduction to Moliére and his plays, this Companion evokes his own theatrical career, his theatres, patrons, the performers and theatre staff with whom he worked, and the various publics he and his troupes entertained with such success. It looks at his particular brands of comedy and satire. L'École des femmes, Le Tartuffe, Dom Juan, Le Misanthrope, L'Avare and Les Femmes savantes are examined from a variety of different viewpoints, and through the eyes of different ages and cultures. The comedies-ballets, a genre invented by Moliére and his collaborators, are re-instated to the central position which they held in his uuvre in Moliére's own lifetime; his two masterpieces in this genre, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Le Malade imaginaire, have chapters to themselves. Finally, the Companion looks at modern directors' theatre, exploring the central role played by productions of his work in successive 'revolutions' in the dramatic arts in France.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chronology

1. The career strategy of an actor turned playwright: 'de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace' Marie-Claude Canova-Green

2. The material conditions of Moliè

re's stage Jan Clarke

3. The master and the mirror: Scaramouche and Moliè

re Stephen Knapper

4. Moliè

re as satirist Larry F. Norman

5. How (and why) not to take Moliè

re too seriously Richard Parish

6. L'Avare or Harpagon's masterclass in comedy Robert McBride

7. Laughter and irony in Le Misanthrope Andrew Calder

8. Comé

dies-ballets Charles Mazouer

9. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: Moliè

re and music John S. Powell

10. Medicine and entertainment in Le Malade imaginaire Julia Prest

11. Moliè

re and the teaching of Frenchness: Les Femmes savantes as a case study Ralph Albanese, Jr.

12. L'É

cole des femmes: matrimony and the laws of chance Roxanne Lalande

13. Moliè

re nationalised: Tartuffe on the British stage from the Restoration to the present day Noë

l Peacock

14. Landmark twentieth-century productions of Moliè

re: a transatlantic perspective on Moliè

re: mise en scè

ne and its historiography Jim Carmody

15. Dom Juan: the directors' play David Whitton

16. 'Reculer pour mieux sauter': modern experimental theatre's debt to Moliè

re David Bradby

Select bibliography.