A detailed introduction to Molière 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 Molière and his collaborators, are re-instated to the central position which they held in his œuvre in Molière'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.
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 Molière's stage Jan Clarke; 3. The master and the mirror: Scaramouche and Molière Stephen Knapper; 4. Molière as satirist Larry F. Norman; 5. How (and why) not to take Molière 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. Comédies-ballets Charles Mazouer; 9. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: Molière and music John S. Powell; 10. Medicine and entertainment in Le Malade imaginaire Julia Prest; 11. Molière and the teaching of Frenchness: Les Femmes savantes as a case study Ralph Albanese, Jr; 12. L'École des femmes: matrimony and the laws of chance Roxanne Lalande; 13. Molière nationalised: Tartuffe on the British stage from the Restoration to the present day Noël Peacock; 14. Landmark twentieth-century productions of Molière: a transatlantic perspective on Molière: mise en scène and its historiography Jim Carmody; 15. Dom Juan: the directors' play David Whitton; 16. 'Reculer pour mieux sauter': modern experimental theatre's debt to Molière David Bradby; Select bibliography.
David Bradby is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Andrew Calder has recently retired from a Readership in the French Department at University College London.
Reviews for The Cambridge Companion to Moliere
The highest compliment that one can pay to this well-written, appropriately illustrated book is that it spurs us on to revisit Moliere. These essays demonstrate the appropriateness of the focus on Moliere in the past decade, first with the creation of the admirable toutmolier.net website, then with the publication of the eminently useful Moliere Encyclopedia in 2002, and now with the Cambridge Companion. - Ronald W. Tobin, University of California, Santa Barbara
