The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

His two last works were among the highest and happiest creations of his genius—the Femmes Savantes, a sort of sequel to the Précieuses Ridicules, though of a more general application—and the Malade Imaginaire. In the latter, he insisted on playing the part of Argan upon the first representation, February 10, 1673; but it was the crowning act of his energetic mind. He became ill during the fourth representation of the play, and died that same evening, February 17th, exactly one year after Madeleine Béjart, with whom, seven-and-twenty years ago, he had set out from Paris with little more ambition than that of earning a livelihood by the pursuit of a congenial career.

Molière placed upon the stage nearly all human passions which lend themselves to comedy or farce. Sordid avarice, lavish prodigality, shameless vice, womanly resignation, artless coquetry, greed for money, downright hypocrisy, would-be gentility, self-sufficient vanity, fashionable swindling, misanthropy, heartlessness, plain common-sense, knowledge of the world, coarse jealousy, irresolution, impudence, pride of birth, egotism, self-conceit, pusillanimity, ingenuity, roguery, affectations, homeliness, thoughtlessness, pedantry, arrogance, and many more faults and vices, find their representatives. The language which they employ is always natural to them, and is neither too gross nor over-refined. His verse has none of the stiffness of the ordinary French rhyme, and becomes in his hands, as well as his prose, a delightful medium for sparkling sallies, bitter sarcasms, and well-sustained and sprightly conversations.

And how remarkable and delicate is the nuance between his different characters, though they may represent the same profession or an identical personage. None of his doctors are alike; his male and female scholars are all dissimilar. Mascarille is not Gros-Réné, Scapin is not Sbrigani, Don Juan is not Dorante, Alceste is not Philinte, Isabelle is not Agnes, Sganarelle is not always the same, Ariste is not Béralde nor Chrysalde; while even his servants, Nicole, Dorine, Martine, Marotte, Toinette, Claudine, and Lisette; his boobies, such as Alain and Lubin, and his intriguants in petticoats, such as Nérine, Lucette, Frosine, vary in character, expression, and conduct. They exemplify the saying, "Like master, like man."

A remarkable characteristic of Molière is that he does not exaggerate; his fools are never overwitty, his buffoons too grotesque, his men of wit too anxious to display their smartness, nor his fine gentlemen too fond of immodest and ribald talk. His satire is always kept within bounds, his repartees are never out of place, his plots are but seldom intricate, and the moral of his plays is not obtruded, but follows as a natural consequence of the whole. He rarely rises to those lofty realms of poetry where Shakespeare so often soars, for he wrote not idealistic, but character, comedies; which is, perhaps, the reason that some of his would-be admirers consider him rather commonplace. His claim to distinction is based only on strong common-sense, good manners, sound morality, real wit, true humor, a great, facile, and accurate command of language, and a photographic delineation of nature.

It cannot be denied that there is little action in his plays, but there is a great deal of natural conversation; his personages show that he was a most attentive observer of men, even at court, where a certain varnish of overrefinement conceals nearly all individual features. He generally makes vice appear in its most ridiculous aspect, in order to let his audience laugh and despise it; his aim is to correct the follies of the age by exposing them to ridicule.