The Post-Molierists

Comment écrire une comédie après Molière ? Les post-moliéresques, de Molière à Marivaux. / Is it possible to pen a comedy after Molière ? The post-Molièrists, from Molière to Marivaux

How is it possible to think about comedy after Molière? What are the necessary methods to represent, conceive, and bring to life a comic play after Molière’s ingenious innovations, after the revival of the farce, after the invention of classical morals in “La Grande Comédie”, after the creation of the ballet comedy, after the victories at the end of so many quarrels, after so much comic and satiric brilliance, after such a supreme theatric genius? This is the challenge which the “post-Molièrists”, Regnard and Lesage, confronted as best they could, before Marivaux reworked the definition of comedy. Their response is simple but efficient as they imagined a theatrical reproduction of a party, a pot-pourri comedy, the elaborate recreation and imitation at the heart of a light-hearted knowledge, bitter, dark, and philosophical.

This in-depth study of classical theater offers two tracks, one methodological (section A) and the other literary (section B). Section A will help literature and social science students learn to master analytical and textual methodologies that will allow them to read and comprehend a variety of texts in depth while at the same time developing their analytical writing skills by performing methodological exercises such as summaries, syntheses, technical explanations, close readings, argumentative dialectical essays, and thematic oral presentations. Section B presents an academic exploration of the evolution of French comedy during the 17th and 18th centuries, combining the historical, literary, theatrical, cultural, philosophical, and social perspectives. In both cases, the course will be accompanied by the texts as well as different versions of the play represented on the screen.

Texts: 1) Dom Juan (Molière)

2) Les Fourberies de Scapin (Molière)

3) Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Molière)

4) Le Légataire universel (Regnard)

5) Turcaret (Lesage)

6) L’île des Esclaves (Marivaux)

Language School
Requirements Fulfilled:
Literature Pedagogy


Summer 2009

FREN6543A-L09 Lecture (Requemora-Gros)
FREN6543B-L09 Lecture (Requemora-Gros)