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  • Molière: dramaturge libertin
  • Henry Phillips
Molière: dramaturge libertin. By Antony McKenna . Paris, Champion, 2005. 254 pp. Pb €8.00.

Well now, those of us academically raised in the 1960s were constantly being exhorted to wean ourselves off Molière and his intentions, Molière the philosopher and Molière's comedy as demonstrating the virtues of the Golden Mean. Many of us managed it. Then along comes Antony McKenna, raising again the issue of Molière's libertinage in terms that require us perhaps to think again. Certainly, he qualifies 'intentions' with the expression 'directions d'intention' and aims to exclude reference to Molière's schooling, reading and philosophical tastes. He will concentrate on Molière's théâtre (McKenna's underlining). This does not last for long, since, in writing Le Misanthrope, Molière is held directly to attack Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, in respect of whom we are treated to some very interesting and informative pages on the period's religious context. Moreover, parallels are made with aspects of Lucretius in particular, which seems to imply that Molière applied the fruits of his particular personal culture to the comedies (seventeen pages of quotations from La Mothe le Vayer are inserted between the final chapter of analytical text and the Conclusion, and forty-two pages are devoted to bibliographies of various sources from antiquity). The thrust of McKenna's argument is that Molière advances in his plays an anti-Christian philosophy which sets 'sociabilité', and 'prudence' or 'prud'homie', libertine principles par excellence, above religious behaviour and belief. The chapters on Le Misanthrope and Dom Juan are certainly the most interesting and effective, especially the latter, in which McKenna denies Dom Juan the status of model libertine, presenting rather a character who hides his sexual ambitions behind libertine posturing, on a par with the social and religious posturings of Tartuffe and Alceste. Moreover, Dom Louis turns out to be the model courtier of Louis XIV's age, and not the pompous figure we are familiar with. Above all, throughout the plays, Molière promotes the principle of 'ni trop, ni trop peu', in one instance illustrated as necessary because of the excesses of Jansenists and Jesuits. Amphitryon is deemed [End Page 92] to pull no punches in disposing of the deity and, finally, attacks on medicine are interpreted as cover for attacks on theology. I really wanted, in reading this book, to identify a breath of fresh air: how does Molière demolish the religious claims of pious interferers in personal and social life? I found this only intermittently. Except in the case of Dom Juan, where McKenna did strike me as offering something fascinating, I was unsurprised by the conclusions. Molière's libertinage, in philosophical terms, turns out to be 'libertinage lite'. Moreover, the presentation of the argument is irritating. The footnotes on many pages of this quite short book are longer than the text. The writing smacks either of haste or stylistic inattention, or both. There is repetition of points stemming from the approach through plays rather than themes, and the numerous occurrences of 'j'y reviendrai' interrupt the flow, adding to a feeling of disjointedness. The aim of the collection in which the book appears is apparently to provide 'études fondamentales'. On that score, this one is frankly disappointing.

Henry Phillips
University of Manchester
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