Delphi Complete Works of Molière (Illustrated)

Oeuvres de Molière #2

by Molière, Alfred Rayney Waller (Translator), Charles Heron Wall (Translator)

France’s answer to Shakespeare, the seventeenth century playwright Molière wrote comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets and poetry. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright today. He invented a new style that employed a double vision of normal and abnormal seen in relation to each other—the comedy of the true opposed to the specious, the intelligent set against the pedantic. Though the sacred and secular authorities often combined against him, Molière’s genius finally emerged to win him the status of a world author. For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Molière’s complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare plays and poetry, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Molière’s life and works
* Concise introductions to the major works
* All 33 dramatic works, with individual contents tables
* Translations by Charles Heron Wall, Henri van Laun, Curtis Hidden Page and A. R. Waller
* Features rare dramas appearing for the first time in digital publishing
* Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
* Excellent formatting of the texts
* Rare poetry translations available in no other collection
* Easily locate the poems or plays you want to read
* Special criticism section, with four essays evaluating Molière’s contribution to literature, including Voltaire’s seminal work
* Features two biographies — discover Molière’s literary life
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres

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CONTENTS:

The Dramatic Works
The Flying Doctor
The Jealousy of le Barbouillé
The Blunderer; or, The Counterplots
The Love-Tiff
The Pretentious Young Ladies
Sganarelle; or, The Imaginary Cuckold
Don Garcia of Navarre or the Jealous Prince
The School for Husbands
The Mad; or, The Bores
The School for Wives
Critique of the School for Wives
The Versailles Impromptu
The Forced Marriage
The Princess of Elid
Tartuffe; or, The Impostor
Don Juan; or, The Stone Banquet
Love is the Best Doctor
The Misanthrope; or, The Cantankerous Lover
The Physician in Spite of Himself
Mélicerte
Comic Pastoral
The Sicilian; or, Love the Painter
Amphitryon
George Dandin; or, The Abashed Husband
The Miser; or, The School for Lies
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
The Magnificent Lovers
The Middle-Class Gentleman
Psyche
The Impostures of Scapin
The Countess of Escarbagnas
The Learned Ladies
The Imaginary Invalid

The Poetry
The Poems of Molière

The Criticism
On Comedy by Voltaire
On the English Comedy by Voltaire
Molière by William Cleaver Wilkinson
To Monsieur de Molière by Andrew Lang

The Biographies
Molière by Andrew Lang
The Wife of Molière by H. Noel Williams

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Genres: Plays, Classics, Theatre, France, French Literature

3525 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1862

About the author

Sophisticated comedies of French playwright Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin, include Tartuffe (1664), The Misanthrope (1666), and The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670).

French literary figures, including Molière and Jean de la Fontaine, gathered at Auteuil, a favorite place.

People know and consider Molière, stage of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also an actor of the greatest masters in western literature. People best know l'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), l'Avare ou l'École du mensonge (The Miser), and le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) among dramas of Molière.

From a prosperous family, Molière studied at the Jesuit Clermont college (now lycée Louis-le-Grand) and well suited to begin a life in the theater. While 13 years as an itinerant actor helped to polish his abilities, he also began to combine the more refined elements with ccommedia dell'arte.

Through the patronage of the brother of Louis XIV and a few aristocrats, Molière procured a command performance before the king at the Louvre. Molière performed a classic of [authore:Pierre Corneille] and le Docteur amoureux (The Doctor in Love), a farce of his own; people granted him the use of Salle du Petit-Bourbon, a spacious room, appointed for theater at the Louvre. Later, people granted the use of the Palais-Royal to Molière. In both locations, he found success among the Parisians with les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Ladies), l'École des maris</i> (<i>The School for Husbands</i>), and <i>[book:l'École des femmes (The School for Wives). This royal favor brought a pension and the title "Troupe du Roi" (the troupe of the king). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments.

Molière received the adulation of the court and Parisians, but from moralists and the Church, his satires attracted criticisms. From the Church, his attack on religious hypocrisy roundly received condemnations, while people banned performance of Don Juan . From the stage, hard work of Molière in so many theatrical capacities began to take its toll on his health and forced him to take a break before 1667.

From pulmonary tuberculosis, Molière suffered. In 1673 during his final production of le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), a coughing fit and a haemorrhage seized him as Argan, the hypochondriac. He finished the performance but collapsed again quickly and died a few hours later. In time in Paris, Molière completely reformed.

Reviews

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you plunge fearlessly into Dante and Goethe and Virgil and de Cervantes in hopes that the classic-classics which inspired the modern-classics remain relevant today, Moliere should immediately jump to the top of your reading list. I was intimidated to go back so far and order the exhumation of the works of a French renaissance playwright, but this one was a resounding winner and definitely worth my time.

I think I have the poet Richard Wilbur to thank for that. One of the many commendations I have for this L.A. Theatre Works production of Moliere is that they do interviews and backstory on the works and their translation between plays. As it turns out, the shocking revelation of enjoyment I experienced in the first ten minutes of The Bungler was largely due to the excellent translation work and modernization done by Richard Wilbur. A play written as a poem, whose jargon can be easily comprehended on the first recitation, is a sheer delight, almost regardless of the content. And the content here is quite excellent as well.

Moliere's plays are short rhyming mix-ups, usually involving mistaken identities or overly jealous lovers who suspect the worst of one another and play their own dupes. He marries the mental fun of a P.G. Wodehouse scamper with the action of an Arsenic And Old Lace or Harvey madcap, draped over a french renaissance landscape reminiscent of Shakespeare. Rather than the good-natured Bertie trying to employ a friendly Jeeves to help a pal out of a bind, Moliere's characters tend to be misanthropic, falling away from one another into miscalculated pettiness based on half information. They are characters approaching on revolution, which are understood best through a comic lens.

This was one of the most positive experiences I have had with listening to a dramatization in lieu of a narrator in audiobook. A play really does translate better with a cast, and these plays were greatly enhanced by the theatrical elements. Moliere was known first and foremost as an incredible and improvisational actor, who eventually turned his hand to writing his own plays. I get the sense that some disenchantment with the frivolity of society and the human heart lies behind much of his writing, but he turned it to light-hearted comedy rather than despair. We laugh to keep from crying, and Moliere figured out how to tangle a hilarious skein.

[Jacquelyn Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant and hilarious short stories from a guy that lived 400 years ago.

[Céline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un classic.

[Iñaki Hernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hay que tener mucha paciencia para leer teatro del siglo XVII, y yo he comprobado que no la tengo. Raro me resulta que la traducción no ayude a seguir leyendo, tratándose de Julio Gómez de la Serna, cuya traducción de los cuentos de Wilde es una maravilla. Regularcete este Moliere. Claro que tampoco hay mucho margen para emocionarse con el humor del s.XVII. Seguramente le dé otra oportunidad.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should mention that I don't read/speak much of the French, so this is sort of bullshit, but there was no other complete edition to choose from.

Like my Shakespeare notes, this date is more about discovery than remembering when I really first got them or finally read them each.