Download Notes on Moliere`s French Theater Most French theatre during the

Notes on Moliere’s French Theater
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Most French theatre during the 16th century was tied to its medieval heritage of mystery and
morality plays but the humanist movement and the access to ancient writers such as Seneca,
Euripides, and Aristophanes enabled French theatre to progress.
Neoclassical theatre became associated with grandiosity; costumes, scenery and stages were
altered to fit with these new ideals. Cardinal Richelieu, Louix XIII’s Prime Minister advocated the
adoption of proscenium stages and attempted to establish some standards for French literature,
many of his ideas came from Italy.
The French neoclassicists recognized only two genres of drama, tragedy and comedy and the
two forms could never be mixed.
Verisimilitude in playwriting meant that the supernatural was forbidden on stage and the goal of
drama was to teach. Neoclassical productions often had special effects and sound effects with
elaborate staging.
Many of Moliere’s plays combined multiple elements of theater: he performed farce that was
written in verse and often combined music, dance, and text into unique forms of performance.
Moliere gravitated toward comedy, which was more flexible than tragedy. (Tragedy by the 17th
century had been codified with neoclassical ideal by Corneille and Racine and comedy lent itself
to more innovation.)
Moliere used his plays as ‘public mirrors’ and attempted to use natural movement, gestures and
diction.
Tartuffe was banned for depicting the upper and dominant classes as hypocrites and its
argument that supported open, tolerant morals. (The King lifted the ban in 1669 after which the
play became a huge success.)
Under the patronage of the King, Moliere also wrote comedies-ballets for the court and was one
of, if not the sole provider of, the King’s entertainment. Of the 21 plays that Moliere wrote, 15
were for the King and his court.
Interestingly, while performing his play Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) in 1673,
Moliere collapsed and later died. He did not renounce his profession on his deathbed (actors
could not be buried on sacred ground) or receive his last rites but the king intervened and
Moliere was ‘buried hastily, and at night.’
It was written in "heroic couplets" with 12 syllables and six beats per each iambic line, a pattern
known as Alexandrine Verse. It’s like iambic pentameter only with SIX, not five, beats per line.
It is the heroic French verse, used in epic narrative, in tragedy and in the higher comedy. There is
some doubt as to the origin of the name “Alexandrine.”