Lectures du 'Misanthrope' by Jean Rohou and Brigitte Prost (review)

In an unevenly divided bipartite project, the two authors bring those preparing for the agrégation up to date on this seminal Molière text. Although the title might lead the reader to expect a spectrum of published interpretations, these are simply mediated by the well-judged overview of Jean Rohou, whose own voice is clearly audible and persuasive despite the pedagogical format. He begins with a broadly focused socio-historical survey, situating the play in the context of the aristocratic manners that it both reflects and satirizes. The early contextual chapters draw heavily on evidence from both moralistes and novelists, in order to foreground the interdependent features of honnêteté and galanterie present in the text, and to describe the often deceitful methods adopted in order to keep up appearances in the world of the salons. The central part of Rohou's analysis then turns to the modes of comic dramatization of these phenomena. Here, he suggests, the play is in a sense composed retrospectively from the dénouement, and stresses the need to consider acted routines alongside textual analysis in any evaluation of its impact. This balance is then exemplified in a detailed survey of the first act, with respect in particular to the stage interactions of well and badly matched couples. There are one or two contestable value judgements at this point, notably in the endorsement of figures such as Philinte (and his counterparts in other plays), to the effect that they 'suscitent notre entière adhésion' (p. 60), thereby failing to notice that there is such a thing as extreme moderation; or, from such apparently genre-unaware interpreters as Jacques Copeau, who is quoted, in the tradition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as seeing in Alceste a character who is 'd'essence tragique' (p. 60). That is precisely what Alceste thinks he is, and therein lies most of his comic potential. The last part of Rohou's contribution deals successively with the major protagonists, placing some welcome stress on Célimène's social position as a young widow, and seeing in Arsinoé an extension of Molière's enduring campaign against the conjoint phenomena of prudery and false piety. He finally turns to Alceste, and gives an overview of some more recent criticism, before concluding persuasively on the verdict that 'Alceste a raison dans sa pensée et tort dans son attitude, dans ses expressions; mais celles-ci sont théâtralement excellentes' (p. 117). In the briefer second part, Brigitte Prost gives an insight into the different ways in which mises en scène have conveyed the ambiguity inherent in the text. After a summary of early modern productions, she devotes the majority of her remarks to twentieth-century readings, all of which tend to reflect the theatrical aesthetic favoured in the decade under review. These range from the psycho-analytical (Jean-Pierre Dougnac in 1976), through the 'farce sinistre' (p. 137) of Antoine Vitez in 1978 and the historical re-enactment of Jean-Pierre Vincent in 1985, complete with horses on stage (with the inevitable olfactory dimension thereby implied), to the meta-theatricality of Christian Rist in 1990. There is a useful, if unduly Hexagonal, bibliography.