The Misanthrope

By Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known by his stage name of Moliere, stands without a rival at the head of French comedy. Born at Paris in January, 1622, where his father held a position in the royal household, he was educated at the Jesuit College de Clermont, and for some time studied law, which he soon abandoned for the stage. His life was spent in Paris and in the provinces, acting, directing performances, managing theaters, and writing plays. He had his share of applause from the king and from the public; but the satire in his comedies made him many enemies, and he was the object of the most venomous attacks and the most impossible slanders. Nor did he find much solace at home; for he married unfortunately, and the unhappiness that followed increased the bitterness that public hostility had brought into his life. "The Misanthrope," considered to be one of Moliere's greatest works, is a truly original and sophisticated dramatic comedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781420918144

Molière

Molière was a French playwright, actor, and poet. Widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and universal literature, his extant works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more.

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THE MISANTHROPE

BY MOLIERE

TRANSLATED BY HENRI VAN LAUN

A Digireads.com Book

Digireads.com Publishing

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-2642-2

Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-1814-4

This edition copyright © 2011

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CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Alceste, in love with Célimène.

Philinte, his friend.

Oronte, in love with Célimène.

Célimène, beloved by Alceste.

Eliante, her cousin.

Arsinoé, Célimène's friend.

Acaste, marquises.

Clitandre, marquises.

Basque, servant to Célimène.

Dubois, servant to Alceste.

An Officer of the Maréchaussée.

Scene.—At Paris, in Célimène's House

ACT I

Scene I.—Philinte, Alceste.

Philinte. What is the matter? What ails you?

Alceste (seated). Leave me, I pray.

Philinte. But, once more, tell me what strange whim—

Alceste. Leave me, I tell you, and get out of my sight.

Philinte. But you might at least listen to people, without getting angry.

Alceste. I choose to get angry, and I do not choose to listen.

Philinte. I do not understand you in these abrupt moods, and although we are friends, I am the first—

Alceste (rising quickly). I, your friend? Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. I have until now professed to be so; but after what I have just seen of you, I tell you candidly that I am such no longer; I have no wish to occupy a place in a corrupt heart.

Philinte. I am then very much to be blamed from your point of view, Alceste?

Alceste. To be blamed? You ought to die from very shame; there is no excuse for such behaviour, and every man of honour must be disgusted at it. I see you almost stifle a man with caresses, show him the most ardent affection, and overwhelm him with protestations, offers, and vows of friendship. Your ebullitions of tenderness know no bounds; and when I ask you who that man is, you can scarcely tell me his name; your feelings for him, the moment you have turned your back, suddenly cool; you speak of him most indifferently to me. Zounds! I call it unworthy, base, and infamous, so far to lower one's self as to act contrary to one's own feelings, and if, by some mischance, I had done such a thing, I should hang myself at once out of sheer vexation.

Philinte. I do not see that it is a hanging matter at all; and I beg of you not to think it amiss if I ask you to show me some mercy, for I shall not hung myself, if it be all the same to you.

Alceste. That is a sorry joke.

Philinte. But, seriously, what would you have people do?

Alceste. I would have people be sincere, and that, like men of honour, no word be spoken that comes not from the heart.

Philinte. When a man comes and embraces you warmly, you must pay him back in his own coin, respond as best you can to his show of feeling, and return offer for offer, and vow for vow.

Alceste. Not so. I cannot bear so base a method which your fashionable people generally affect; there is nothing I detest so much as the contortions of these great time-and-lip servers, these affable dispensers of meaningless embraces, these obliging utterers of empty words, who view every one in civilities, and treat the man of worth and the fop alike. What good does it do if a man heaps endearments on you, vows that he is your friend, that he believes in you, is full of zeal for you, esteems and loves you, and lauds you to the skies, when he rushes to do the same to the first rapscallion he meets? No, no, no heart with the least self-respect cares for esteem so prostituted; he will hardly relish it, even when openly expressed, when he finds that he shares it with the whole universe. Preference must be based on esteem, and to esteem every one is to esteem no one. Since you abandon yourself to the vices of the times, zounds! you are not the man for me. I decline this over-complaisant kindness, which uses no discrimination. I like to be distinguished; and, to cut the matter short, the friend of all mankind is no friend of mine.

Philinte. But when we are of the world, we must confirm to the outward civilities which custom demands.

Alceste. I deny it. We ought to punish pitilessly that shameful pretence of friendly intercourse. I like a man to be a man, and to show on all occasions the bottom of his heart in his discourse. Let that be the thing to speak, and never let our feelings be hidden beneath vain compliments.

Philinte. There are many cases in which plain speaking would become ridiculous, and could hardly be tolerated. And, with all due allowance for your unbending honesty, it is as well to conceal your feelings sometimes. Would it be right or decent to tell thousands of people what we think of them? And when we meet with some one whom we hate or who displeases us, must we tell him so openly?

Alceste. Yes.

Philinte. What! Would you tell old Emilia, that it ill becomes her to set up for a beauty at her age, and that the paint she uses disgusts everyone?

Alceste. Undoubtedly.

Philinte. Or Dorilas, that he is

Reviews for The Misanthrope

[johnjgaynard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some months ago, I went to see Molière's play Le Misanthrope at the Théâtre du Ranelagh in Paris. I last saw it a few years ago but, with the help of age, I had forgotten some of the details. So, even if the production wasn't that great it was good to hear this masterpiece of social satire once again.

I won't repeat the whole plot of The Misanthrope, but here are some lines from the Wikipedia resume (Alceste is the misanthrope):

"The plot... involves a trial before the Royal Court of France that results from Alceste's refusal to praise Oronte's love poetry. Alceste typically refuses to dole out false compliments, and this is the practice that lands him in court. ...Philinte represents a foil for Alceste's moral extremism, and speaks throughout the first act of the play on the necessity of self-censorship and polite flattery to smooth over the rougher textures of a complex society. Alceste, on the other hand, believes that people should be completely honest and should not put on pretenses just to be considered polite in society. Alceste loses the court case. Eventually, Alceste's inability to cope with society and its inescapable affectations causes him to forsake the woman he loves..."

If Molière had not died long before Amazon.com came into existence I would have suspected him of plagiarizing some recent conversations I have seen in Amazon reader forums in which writers plug their books and solicit reviews. The forum conversations are usually genteel but they can get very catty if one contributor decides to post a negative one-star review of another writer's book to Amazon or post a 'spoiler' that will ruin the surprise ending.

The play thus shows that the dangers involved in reviewing another writer's work, or being reviewed oneself, are not new. Molière came in for an immense amount of both fair and unfair criticism in his time, so he was as well placed as any modern writer to understand the importance of harsh criticism. His skin was thicker than most because the actors and actresses of his time were considered so low on the social scale that they didn't have the right to be buried in hallowed ground. After his death Molière's body was thrown into the paupers' pit outside the Père Lachaise cemetery.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a simple and straight-forward drama. Alceste has his ideals but is in love with a woman who falls short of them. There are a number of amusing characters who come and go and a pair of likeable people that I wanted to see more of.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as Tartuffe, but still a wonderful play. The writing and humor hold up well. The societal conventions that are lampooned have not changed that much either.

[trilliams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While Alceste is certainly a 1600s Dolph Adomian, the play doesn't have enough build and it sort of flounders. It's another issue with old humor not being effective enough in modern times. I definitely approve of abandoning society to live in the forest though.

[thothj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rather dark comedy, which reinforced my dislike of the main female character, which I acquired after seeing this play performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Though I adored the iambic pentameter.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Moliere has long been on my to-read list because his comedies were on a list of "100 Significant Books" I was determined to read through. The introduction in one of the books of his plays says that of his "thirty-two comedies... a good third are among the comic masterpieces of world literature." The plays are surprisingly accessible and amusing, even if by and large they strike me as frothy and light compared to comedies by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Wilde, Shaw and Rostand. But I may be at a disadvantage. I'm a native New Yorker, and looking back it's amazing how many classic plays I've seen on stage, plenty I've seen in filmed adaptation and many I've studied in school. Yet I've never encountered Moliere before this. Several productions of Shakespeare live and filmed are definitely responsible for me love of his plays. Reading a play is really no substitute for seeing it--the text is only scaffolding. So that might be why I don't rate these plays higher. I admit I also found Wilbur's much recommended translation off-putting at first. The format of rhyming couplets seemed sing-song and trite, as if I was reading the lyrics to a musical rather than a play. As I read more I did get used to that form, but I do suspect these are the kinds of works that play much better on stage than on the page.Misanthrope was the first Moliere play I ever read, and arguably the most famous of all his plays. The introduction in what might seem an oxymoron calls it a comic King Lear, and I can see that side of it. As comic as this might read, it is basically a tragedy about the young man Alceste, the "misanthrope" of the play, who makes such a fetish of always being honest he alienates everyone around him. The character I enjoyed the most was definitely the malicious Arsinoe who plays the prude. The catty scenes between her and Alceste's love Celimene is particularly hilarious.

[gingerbreadman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Almost alone at the office between christmas and New Year's, I find the time to read this classic. This is one of the few major Moliére plays I've never seen a performance of, and it's been ages since I read it too. Moliére is never as fun to read as to - sometimes - see staged. The comedy is rarely in the lines themselves, but rather in the situations, the potential of the text. Therefore, I find his plays are best read fairly slowly.Which I, this time, didn't do.Still, I enjoyed revisiting the story of Alceste, choking on the gossip and fakeness of high society and demanding full honesty from everybody, and his reluctant love for the sharp-tongued gossip Céliméne. There are some good situations derived from the premise, the funniest one probably being when he's asked to comment on a horrible piece of poetry. Moliére is also good at looking at things from two sides - Alceste is honest and upstanding, but because of this also more than a little annoying. The middle road of his friends Philinte and Éliante - trying to be honest but not being rude or stupid about it - is presented as a more sensible approach.The strangely open ending is not quite satisfactory. But on the other hand it has a rather true ring to it. Not everything can end in a happy landing - sometimes people are just too far apart.

[varwenea · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"... Everywhere I find nothing but base flattery, injustice, self-interest, deceit, roguery. I cannot bear it any longer; I am furious; and my intention is to break with all mankind.” – Alceste, Act 1, Scene 1I started reading the book before election results; after the elections, these words take on a whole new meaning.Alceste is the protagonist and the official “misanthrope” of the story. A straight-shooter and brutally candid, he criticizes the love verses of a fellow nobleman, Oronte, who takes him to court over such an insult. Meanwhile, the reader learns Alceste, Oronte, Acaste, and Clitandre all favor one twenty-year-old socialite – Célimène, who is charismatically vocal and a flirt. Meanwhile, Célimène’s jealous older friend, Arsinoé, pines for Alceste and adds salt to every wound she can find. Two characters, Philinte (friend of Alceste) and Éliante (cousin of Célimène) were the only two honest and faithful’s, who were rewarded with each other’s love. Molière’s 1666 ‘The Misanthrope’ play is more focused on character development than plot progression. Having had two previous plays (‘Tartuffe’ and ‘Dom Juan’) banned by the French government, this one is typically viewed as one of Molière’s more restrained tales even though once again, the nobility is ridiculed (who then complains to the government). Officially a comedy, I must admit that I did not laugh once; I even winced. Reading this, I have visions of Kirsten Dunst in ‘Marie Antoninette’ in the role of Célimène. Surrounded by her admirers, Célimène criticizes various acquaintances as they all laugh at her verbal abuses for entertainment. To their surprise, dun-dun-dun, Célimène has a few choice words about them too, and they all abandon her. Despite Alceste with his misanthropic tendencies being the supposed humor of this comedy, I found some of his words as well as those of Philinte’s to be thought-provoking. When the world is going haywire, does it make sense to retreat and do a ‘Captain Fantastic’? As for Célimène, not an angel herself, she took the blunt of the hate, even though everyone had encouraged and endorsed her behavior. All in all, except for the last scene, this play had saddened me. Some quotes:On love:Éliante: “…in the beloved all things become lovable. They think their faults perfections, and invent sweet terms to call them by. The pale one vies with the jessamine in fairness; another, dark enough to frighten people, become an adorable brunette; the lean one has a good shape and is lithe; the stout one has a portly and majestic bearing; the slattern, who has few charms, passes under the name of a careless beauty; the giantess seems a very goddess in their sight; the dwarf is an epitome of all the wonders of Heaven; the proud one has a soul worthy of a diadem; the artful brims with wit; the silly one is very good-natured; the chatterbox is good-tempered; and the silent one modest and reticent. Thus a passionate swain loves even the very faults of those of whom he is enamored.” On virtue:Philinte: “All human failings give us, in life, the means of exercising our philosophy. It is the best employment for virtue; and if probity reigned everywhere, if all hearts were candid, just, and tractable, most of our virtues would be useless to us, inasmuch as their functions are to bear, without annoyance, the injustice of others in our good cause; and just in the same way as a heart full of virtue.”