Moliere

mo-le-er' (1622-1673), the assumed name of Jean Baptiste Pocquelin, a celebrated French dramatist. His father was upholsterer and valet de chambre to the king Louis XIII, in which office his son succeeded him. The young man conceived a strong passion for the stage. His ambition being stimulated by the success of Corneille, he resigned his office at court, changed his family name for that of Moliere, and formed a theatrical company of young persons of tastes similar to his own. For a dozen years or more this strolling troupe, with its leader as both actor and playwright, continued to travel from place to place, well received but not widely known. At last, having received permission to act before the king, Louis XIV, Moliere was allowed to establish his troupe in Paris. In 1859 he presented Les Precieuses de Ridicules. It is said that true French comedy dates from this play. The critic Menage remarked on leaving the theater, "Henceforth we must burn what we have worshiped and worship what we have burned."

Moliere produced many comedies, in which were mirrored faithfully the manners, the follies, and the fashions of the day. He continued to write, and to act the principal comic parts in his own plays until the last. He was far from well when his last production, La Malade I maginaire (An Imaginary Illness) was presented. The exertion of acting produced convulsions, and he died within a few hours. Many of his plays had given offense to the clergy. He had been excommunicated, and, while dying, did not receive the last rites of religion, although he asked for them. The archbishop of Paris refused him burial in consecrated ground, but, on the intercession of the king, with whom Moliere had been a favorite, the body was given Christian burial in the cemetery of St. Joseph's. The remains have been moved twice, and now rest at Pere Lachaise, where a monument has been erected to Moliere's memory. Some of Moliere's best known comedies are Les Femmes Savantes, a satire on bluestockings, The Miser, Le Misanthrope, Le Tartuffe, in which an old hypocrite is exposed, The Portrait of a Painter, and The School for Women. Le Misanthrope is one of the finest examples of modern comedy. Unlike many of Moliere's it is more pleasing in the reading than in the acting. Among critics it contends with Le Tartuffe for first place among Moliere's plays, although La Malade Imaginaire is probably the most popular. Corneille, Racine, and Moliere are the three great names in French drama. Racine excels in tragedy. Corneille produced both tragedy and comedy, and is justly celebrated for dignity of style and grandeur of sentiment. But Moliere is the father of French comedy.

SAYINGS.

SAID OF MOLIERE.

Whatever the theme, Moliere had a falcon's eye for detecting vice and folly in every shape, and talons for pouncing upon all as the natural prey of the satirist.--Botta.

Of all who have ever written, Moliere is the one who has observed men without seeming to do so.--Americana.

Moliere's private character was remarkable for gentleness, probity, generosity, and delicacy, qualities attested not only by anecdotes but by the evidence of documents. . . . He has the humor which is but a sense of the true value of life, and now takes the form of the most vivacious wit and the keenest observation, now of melancholy, and pity, and wonder at the fortunes of mortal men. In the literature of France, his is the greatest name, and in the literature of the modern drama the greatest after that of Shakespeare. --Britannica.

Moliere belongs to no nation. One day the god of comedy, wishing to write, became a man, and happened to fall into France.--Kemble.

See Corneille; Racine; Comedy