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| Google Doodle: Celebrating Molière (google.com) |
Christine's minutes: Thirteen members of the Literature Club gathered in Carol’s back yard for our first proper presentation of this year of drama. And it was as proper as any play by Moliere could possibly be.
Your recording secretary arrived late, and quite possibly missed the day’s most exciting news, but alas. She immediately read the minutes of our previous meeting.
Our treasurer, Lori Walsh, reported that the amount in our treasury remains the same, but will soon be lessened by the $275 we will donate to the Hastings Library.
The idle chatter that followed was hardly idle, pertaining, as it did, to the theatre. Sharon loved the new production of Top Dog/Under Dog. We touched the subject of how enormously a play read to oneself from the written page differs from a play performed on stage. We assume that this subject will return in various forms throughout our year.
President Connie Stewart rang the bell at 1:25pm; the lights dimmed, the curtain opened, and the play began. (Brief pause to thank our gracious hostess for her lovely garden setting.)
We might almost say that Molière dominated the stage that afternoon, but not entirely, because our presenter wisely began with Richard Wilbur, the translator par excellence of Molière.
A recent piece in the NYRB inspired Barbara, our presenter, to choose Molière as her topic, using the magnificent Richard Wilbur translation.
Wilbur was born in 1921, and died in 2017, by which time he had won almost every possible award for poetry. Members read selections from Geoffrey O’Brien’s review of his complete translations. We also read from Adam Gopnik’s introduction to the Library of America edition of the plays.
Molière wrote in rhyming alexandrines, a poetic meter of 12 syllables, usually split into two 6-syllable lines. Wilbur transformed Molière's classic French verse (French being a language in which it is notoriously easy to rhyme) into English iambic pentameter. Not only did he also create brilliant rhymes [heaven’s eyes with compromise; pupil with scruple], but he kept the edgy spirit of Molière alive in every play.
Molière, the pen name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was born in 1622 (almost 300 years before Wilbur), into the France of the Sun-King, Louis XIV. His father was an upholsterer to the court, but Molière had no interest in his father’s trade, and went directly into the world of theatre. In 1643, he co-founded the Illustre Théâtre, and wrote his first plays. From the beginning, the target of his biting humor was extremism of every kind. He was a poet of common sense. His first success in Paris was Les précieuses ridicules, a comedy of manners satirizing the social climbing of the middle class and their salons. It was so popular that the company was able to move to the Palais Royal in 1660.
Molière was constantly busy writing, directing, acting and perhaps most significantly, staying in favor with Louise XIV. But the power of his ridicule and wit bothered and outraged many clerics, courtiers and other playwrights. Tartuffe was initially banned when it came out in 1664. The ban was lifted in 1669, and since that time it has been regarded as one of Molière's greatest comedies. Moliere was active on the stage until the day of his death, literally. After playing the part of Argan in Le Malade Imaginaire, his last comedy, Molière collapsed on stage and died the same day, at the age of 51. The church, stinging from his criticism, refused to grant him a holy burial. However, in 1804, with great fanfare, Moliere’s earthly remains were translated to Père Lachaise, where he enjoys the company of La Fontaine, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Marcel Marceau, and Abelard and Heloise.
Members read from George Meredith’s 1877 essay “On Comedy”, in which he commends Molière for his “unrivalled studies of mankind in society”, and from Eric Auerbach’s book, Mimesis.
And then to the plays. First, members read from Le misanthrope, written in 1666, and according to Wilbur, “a study of impurity of motive”. Alceste, the main character, is an aristocrat who truly longs for the ‘genuine’, but at the same time he is terribly jealous and critical. We read scenes between Alceste and his friend, Philinte; between Alceste and Celimene, the object of his love; and between Celimene and Acaste, another of her lovers.
On to Tartuffe. The central character, Orgon, is a bourgeois of middle age, with grown children, and a second very attractive wife, Elmire. We learn from Dorine, the maid – and the servants are often the ones to offer common sense explanations in Molière's plays – that recently Orgon has been behaving foolishly, and is compensating with extreme religiosity. At which point he discovers Tartuffe, a brilliant hypocrite and manipulator, who moves into the house and swindles the family.
Members read scenes between Orgon, his brother-in-law Cleante, and Dorine the maid; between Orgon and Elmire, his wife, and a later scene when Orgon learns that Tartuffe has been making passes at Elmire. For our grand finale, we read the famous farcical scene in which Orgon hides under a table in order to spy on Tartuffe’s slimy attempted seduction of Elmire. Finally, Orgon’s eyes are opened.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:45.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording secretary
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