Molière: A Theatrical Life

by Virginia Scott

• ISBN13: 9780521012386
• ISBN10: 0521012384
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this biography, Virginia Scott locates Moli+re's life and work in the social, literary and theatrical contexts of the period. She offers a narrative account of his life and an overview of his plays in the wider setting of the development of seventeenth-century French drama. Her research extends from Moli+re's boyhood and his Jesuit education at the Coll+ge de Clermont, through the beginning of his theatrical career in Paris and as a vagabond actor in the provinces, to his days as a court dramatist under Louis XIV. He was a controversial playwright, striking out against hypocrisy in religion and medicine, and finally a cynical survivor of the literary, cultural, and marital wars. This full-length biography, the first to be written about Moli+re in English since 1930, will appeal to the general reader as well as specialists in French and Theatre Studies.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin	9	(23)
Madeleine	32	(16)
The Illustre Theatre	48	(18)
Exile	66	(21)
Return to Paris	87	(22)
Husbands and wives	109	(25)
The courtier	134	(24)
Enemies	158	(23)
Friends	181	(30)
Marriage (and love)	211	(20)
Last act	231	(30)
Envoi	261	(6)
Notes	267	(54)
Works consulted	321	(6)
Index	327