Molière and the Commonwealth of Letters PDF Download

Author: Roger Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 910

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Author: Mechele Leon
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587298910
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
From 1680 until the French Revolution, when legislation abolished restrictions on theatrical enterprise, a single theatre held sole proprietorship of Molière’s works. After 1791, his plays were performed in new theatres all over Paris by new actors, before audiences new to his works. Both his plays and his image took on new dimensions. In Molière, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife, Mechele Leon convincingly demonstrates how revolutionaries challenged the ties that bound this preeminent seventeenth-century comic playwright to the Old Regime and provided him with a place of honor in the nation’s new cultural memory. Leon begins by analyzing the performance of Molière’s plays during the Revolution, showing how his privileged position as royal servant was disrupted by the practical conditions of the revolutionary theatre. Next she explores Molière’s relationship to Louis XIV, Tartuffe, and the social function of his comedy, using Rousseau’s famous critique of Molière as well as appropriations of George Dandin in revolutionary iconography to discuss how Moliérean laughter was retooled to serve republican interests. After examining the profusion of plays dealing with his life in the latter years of the Revolution, she looks at the exhumation of his remains and their reentombment as the tangible manifestation of his passage from Ancien Régime favorite to new national icon. The great Molière is appreciated by theatre artists and audiences worldwide, but for the French people it is no exaggeration to say that the Father of French Comedy is part of their national soul. By showing how he was represented, reborn, and reburied in the new France—how the revolutionaries asserted his relevance for their tumultuous time in ways that were audacious, irreverent, imaginative, and extreme—Leon clarifies the important role of theatrical figures in preserving and portraying a nation’s history.

Author: James F. Gaines
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031307657X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, the French playwright Moli^D`ere became one of the most influential dramatists of the 17th century. His comedies shaped the development of theater in Europe, inspired his contemporaries in England, and left a lasting dramatic legacy after his death in 1673. Moli^D`re has also inspired a vast body of scholarship, and recent work has dispelled many of the myths surrounding his career. This reference provides English-speaking readers with a current and comprehensive guide to his life and works. Hundreds of A-Z entries cover topics related to his life, works, and theatrical career, including: Plays; Individual characters; Historical persons; Allusions; Influences; Cultural institutions; And much more. This scrupulously researched volume relies on verifiable facts, giving scant attention to the romantic fiction surrounding the playwright. Many of the entries list works for further reading. A chronology outlines the chief events of Moli^D`re's life and his contributions to the stage. The volume concludes with a bibliography.

Author: Jan Clarke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316999424
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 667

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Book Description
The definitive guide to Molière's world and his afterlife, this is an accessible contextual guide for academics, undergraduates and theatre professionals alike. Interdisciplinary and diverse in scope, each chapter offers a different perspective on the social, cultural, intellectual, and theatrical environment within which Molière operated, as well as demonstrating his subsequent impact both within France and across the world. Offering fresh insight for those working in the fields of French Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies and French History, Molière in Context is an exceptional tribute to the premier French dramatist on the 400th anniversary of his birth.

Author: Philip A. Wadsworth
Publisher: Summa Publications, Inc.
ISBN: 9780917786709
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Author: William Driver Howarth
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521286794
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This study explores the evolution of Molière's comedy as a careful amalgamation of comedy and philosophical satire.

Author: Andrew Calder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567042782
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The history of ideas provides an important means of understanding and reinterpreting the literature of the past; and in this study Dr. Calder demonstrates the illumination that this informed approach brings to the comedies of MoliFre. In the course of this study, the author outlines a fresh theory of classical comedy which applies to the works of other French writers of the 17th century; and the historical reinterpretations of MoliFre's two most difficult plays -- Le Tartuffe and Dom Juan -- break entirely new ground.Although this is a work which specialists will admire, it is also intended to serve as an introduction to MoliFre and French classical comedy at large and will be of considerable value to younger students and readers of MoliFre in general.

Author: David Bradby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139827294
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 11

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Book Description
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.

Author: Hallam Walker
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Provides in-depth analysis of the life, works, career, and critical importance of Moliere.

Author: Sander M. Goldberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400857961
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Instead of seeing Terence primarily as an adapter of Greek New Comedy, Sander Goldberg treats him as an innovative dramatist writing for a specifically Roman audience. His book will interest not only students of classical literature but also those concerned with wider problems of critical theory and the comic tradition. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.