Molière: Reasoning with Fools (review)

This book pitches into a controversy in Molière scholarship which has engaged leading specialists over the last sixty years. However, Michael Hawcroft's contextualized dramaturgical analysis is the first sustained scrutiny of five of the so-called raisonneurs, who have previously been the subject of articles or of part of more broadly based studies. Instead of the synthetic approach of his predecessors, which have tended to categorize the raisonneur as a moralist, dramatic foil, comic ironist or honnête homme, Hawcroft provides a very detailed critical commentary of the scenes in which each of the raisonneurs has appeared. Of considerable interest is Hawcroft's dialogue with critics of opposing views, which are initially summarized in Chapter 1 and become a major focus thereafter. Ariste's often unrecognized contribution (L'Ecole des maris) is shown as significant for the development of Molière's innovative blend of moral issues and farcical structures (Chapter 2). Chrysalde's status (L'Ecole des femmes) belies the three scenes in which he appears, in his dual role of support for the lovers and friendship for Arnolphe, which accentuates the duality in the latter, crucial to the creation of a new comic hero, half-way between the figure of farce and the protagonist of literary comedy (Chapter 3). The fresh examination of text and context rescues Cléante (Tartuffe) from being considered as merely a 'spokesman of wisdom', a 'comic fool' or the 'hidden agent of an alleged anti-Christian satire'. Hawcroft underscores Cléante's multivalent function in relation to the plot, to the comic portrayal of Orgon and to the political context of Molière's five-year battle to stage Tartuffe (Chapter 4). Philinte's role, which has often been regarded as rather dull, is similarly upgraded: his maximizing of audience laughter at Alceste corrects the view that Le Misanthrope is a solemn play, a misreading of the notion of rire dans l'âme, formulated by the first reviewer, Donneau de Visé; the ideal of friendship counters the prevailing dark interpretation on stage and in study (Chapter 5). The focus on Béralde's role in the entire play helps Hawcroft chart a course through divergent criticisms, which have been based largely on the raisonneur's attempt in Act III, scene 3 to disabuse Argan of his unquestioned faith in his medical practitioners, and have often been equated with the views of the dramatist himself (Chapter 6). The conclusion considers the common characteristics and the divergences of the five raisonneurs and the case of others who have attracted the label (Sganarelle in Dom Juan, Madame Jourdain in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Ariste in Les Femmes savantes) and explains, within the conceptual framework of the study, the lack of a raisonnneur figure in L'Avare. Aware of the relative importance of a type featuring in about only 15% of the Molière corpus, Hawcroft also indicates a wider application of his dramaturgical approach. In the generously formulated challenge to prevailing scholarship and the analysis of the distinctive contribution of each raisonneur to some of the dramatist's most complex plays this book is an invaluable addition to Molière bibliography.