Tartuffe (character of J. B. Moliere's comedy "Tartuffe")
Tartuffe (Tartuffe) - the central character in J. B. Molière's comedy "Tartuffe" (1664-1669), a hypocrite who got into Orgon's trust, appropriated his house and fortune, but was exposed and arrested by royal decree.
His name was apparently taken by Molière from the arsenal of the Italian comedy of masks, where the character Tartufo appeared (he was first mentioned in France in 1609). There is also an association with the old French truffe - "deceit, swindle". In the subtitle and in the list of characters, this character is given an extremely brief, but very capacious description: "l" imposteur "(liar, deceiver, impostor)," faux devot "(holy, hypocrite). Almost forty years old (or, according to him himself - thirty-five years old) the age of the performer of this role in the final version of Ducroisy's "Tartuffe" (whom Moliere introduced into the play to replace the deceased Duparc), his amazing possibilities of reincarnation (he played Ducroisy's close fiancé in "The Funny Pretenders", the farcical roles of Sotanville in "Georges Dandin " and Geronte in "The Scams of Scapin", the lyrical lover Valera in "The Miser", the intriguer Sgribani in "Monsieur de Poursonyak", Covel's servant in "The Tradesman in the Nobility") allow us to imagine the age of Tartuffe and his extraordinary ability for mimicry, hypocrisy (the word hypocrite - "hypocrite", used by Moliere along with imposteur, faux dévot in relation to Tartuffe, originally meant "actor, comedian") Portrait of Tartuffe (Panulfe according to the second edition) restored from “The Second Petition, brought to the king in his camp before the city of Lisle in Flanders”: “... I ... dressed up the hero in secular clothes; ... supplied him with a small hat, long hair, a large collar, a sword and lace all over the dress ... ".
Tartuffe is a terrible hypocrite. He hides behind religion, pretends to be a saint, not believing in anything, and secretly does his dark deeds. A. S. Pushkin wrote about Tartuffe: “In Molière, a hypocrite drags himself behind the wife of his benefactor, a hypocrite; accepts the estate under preservation, hypocrite; asks for a glass of water, hypocrite” (“Table-Talk”). Hypocrisy for Tartuffe is not just a dominant character trait, it is the character itself. For the classicists, character is a distinctive property, a general quality, a specificity of one or another human type. The character can be extremely, improbably sharpened, because such a sharpening does not distort it, but, on the contrary, highlights it. In this, character differs from mores—characteristics, each of which must not be sharpened to the point of opposing others, so as not to distort the picture in the whole picture of mores. Morals are common, ordinary, habitual; character is special, rare precisely in terms of the degree of manifestation of a property dispersed in the mores of society. The image of Tartuffe, therefore, is intended not so much to criticize the mores of society contemporary to Molière, but to analyze, philosophically comprehend a certain property of human nature, so terrible that “Tartuffe” is more inherent in a tragicomic rather than actually comedic beginning, this work really “closely fits to tragedy,” in the words of Pushkin. In the preface to Tartuffe, Molière speaks of hypocrisy: “Of all vices, this vice is especially dangerous for the state; and we have seen that the theater has great corrective power.” However, the high degree of generalization in the image of Tartuffe does not prevent Molière from keeping specific carriers of hypocrisy in the comedy at gunpoint; it is no coincidence that he writes in the preface: “... The people who are brought out in it have clearly shown that in France they are more helpful than all those whom I got it out so far." In “The First Petition Brought to the King About the Comedy Tartuffe”, the dialectic of the generalized (hypocrisy) and the concrete (hypocrites) is comprehended by the author very clearly: “Since the duty of comedy is to correct people by amusing them, I believed that by the nature of my occupation, the best that I can do is to denounce in funny images the vices of my age; and since hypocrisy is undoubtedly one of the most common, most insufferable, and most dangerous vices, it seemed to me, sir, that I would do no small service to all honest people in your kingdom if I wrote a comedy that would ridicule hypocrites and put them on display properly. all the learned antics of these utterly virtuous people, all the secret tricks of these counterfeiters of piety, who try to deceive others with feigned zeal and counterfeit goodness”; but: “The Tartuffes at hand contrived to enter into favor with Your Majesty, and the originals succeeded in eliminating the copy, no matter how innocent it was and no matter how similar it was found.” Specific allusions have lost their relevance, in addition, the French researcher J. Bordonov is right: “... You have to be French to understand what in this comedy infuriates the saints and why the king never removes the ban from it.” At present, Tartuffe is relevant primarily as a character, a world literary type, an eternal image.
The character of Tartuffe does not change in the course of the work. But it unfolds gradually. The composition of the comedy is very peculiar and unexpected: the main character Tartuffe appears only in act III. Molière, in the preface to the comedy, justifies this: “... I worked on it with all the prudence that the delicacy of the subject required, and ... I applied all my art and all my efforts to distinguish the image of the hypocrite from the image of a true believer . Therefore, I used two whole acts to prepare the appearance of my villain. He does not keep the listener in doubt for a single minute; they will immediately recognize him by the signs that I gave him; and from beginning to end, he does not utter a single word, does not perform a single deed that would not portray to the audience a bad person and would not set off a truly honest person, whom I oppose to him.
The first two acts are a dispute about Tartuffe. The hypocrisy of the hero leads to the fact that there are two directly opposite views on him. The head of the family into which Tartuffe rubbed himself, Orgon and his mother, Madame Pernel, consider Tartuffe a holy person, their trust in the hypocrite is boundless. The religious enthusiasm that Tartuffe aroused in them makes them blind and ridiculous. At the other pole - Orgon's son Damis, daughter Mariana with her lover Valera, wife Elmira, other heroes. Among all these characters who hate Tartuffe, the maid Dorina stands out in particular. For Orgon, Tartuffe is the height of all perfection, for Dorina it is “a beggar that a thin and barefoot has come here”, and now he “imagines himself a lord” (Act I, yavl. 1; translated by M. Lozinsky). There are, as it were, two phantoms of Tartuffe. For Madame Pernel, he is a “pure soul”, “He scourges all sinful things publicly / And wants only what heaven pleases” (Act I, yavl. 1). Dorina, in the famous dialogue about Tartuffe, characterizes him as a glutton and a lazy person: “He is portly, fresh in face and lips like cherries”, “I ate two partridges and ate a lamb’s backside”, “Tomim with a sweet drowsiness, / He, getting up from the table, went stealthily to his place / And lay down in a warm bed without delay...”, “At breakfast he drained the bottle to the bottom” - and all this during the illness of the lady (Act I, yavl. 5). In act II, the third phantom appears - Tartuffe in the representation of Orgon. In the previous act, he four times called Tartuffe "le pauvre homme" - poor fellow, poor. Now this phrase takes on a literal meaning: Tartuffe is from a noble, but impoverished family that once lost profitable lands. Therefore, Orgon can intermarry with him, and this will not be shameful. He will read his daughter Mariana, in love with the young Valera, as Tartuffe's wife.
But then Tartuffe appeared. He turns out to be not as primitive as Dorina painted him, but this, of course, is not “le pauvre homme” and, moreover, not a saint, as he tries to appear in the eyes of the inhabitants of the house of Orgon. His first words show hypocrisy. Noticing Dorina, Tartuffe loudly addresses the servant Laurent behind the scenes: “Laurent, take the whip, take the sackcloth, / And let us bless the right hand with our heart from above. If they ask, then I went to prison / To make a meager contribution to those who fell into darkness. Then he gives Dorina a handkerchief: “Cover your chest so that I can hear you” (Act III, yavl. 2). But already in the next phenomenon he behaves very boldly, deciding to seduce Orgon's wife Elmira. He squeezes Elmira's fingers, puts his hand on her knees, pulls a chair close to her, continuing to hypocritically assert that he is feeling the velvet of the dress and admiring the lace. Having made a confession: “No, my heart is not icy in my chest” (Act III, fig. 3), Tartuffe immediately unleashes a stream of Pharisaic words on Elmira: “Love, which attracts our spirit to eternal beauties, does not extinguish our love for beauties fleeting...” (Act III, yavl. 3).
Acts III and IV are structured very similarly: Tartuffe twice falls into the "mousetrap", his essence becomes obvious. He acts completely shamelessly towards Orgon's wife, being confident in his power over the owner of the house. For the first time, his frank confessions to Elmira are heard by the son of Orgon Damis. But Orgon does not believe his revelations, Tartuffe has some kind of hypnotic effect on him. Orgon not only does not expel Tartuffe, but, on the contrary, gives him all his goodness. It was necessary to provoke Tartuffe and repeat this whole scene especially for Orgon, so that he could see. This scene IV of act (fig. 5), in which Tartuffe again demands love from Elmira, and Orgon sits under the table and hears everything, is one of the most famous scenes in all of Molière's work. In vain Dorina was afraid that such a cunning rogue as Tartuffe would solve the trap. Elmira rightly objected to her: “No, we are gullible when we love another, / And we completely destroy ourselves with self-love” (Act IV, yavl. 3). Tartuffe got it.
Now Orgon understood the truth. But unexpectedly, Madame Pernel objects to him, who cannot believe in the crime of Tartuffe (Act V, yavl. 3). No matter how angry Orgon is with her, nothing can convince her until Tartuffe expels the whole family from the house now owned by him and brings an officer to arrest Orgon as a traitor to the king (Orgon entrusted Tartuffe with the secret documents of the Fronders - the opposition-minded nobility). So Moliere emphasizes the special danger of hypocrisy: it is difficult to believe in the baseness and immorality of a hypocrite until you directly encounter his criminal activity, you do not see his face without a pious mask. Act V, in which Tartuffe, throwing off his mask, threatens Orgon with the greatest troubles, acquires tragic features, a comedy develops into a tragicomedy. Orgon, who has begun to see clearly, became the object of Tartuffe's blackmail, and his whole family finds himself on the street with him. And it is especially dramatic that there is nowhere to expect salvation: none of the heroes of the work can overcome Tartuffe.
But Molière, obeying the laws of the genre, ends the comedy with a happy ending: it turns out that the officer brought by Tartuffe in order to arrest Orgon has a royal order to arrest Tartuffe himself. The king (an off-stage character) had been following this swindler for a long time, and as soon as Tartuffe's activities became dangerous, he immediately ordered his arrest. Tartuffe's last words: "But why to prison?" (“Pourquoi donc la prison?” - Act V, yavl. 7) echo the first line of the hero in the comedy, Tartuffe really goes to prison, but hypocritical compassion for the prisoners, to whom he had nothing to do, is replaced by genuine fear for himself.
However, the end of "Tartuffe" is a seemingly happy denouement. Tartuffe is not a specific person, but a generalized image, a literary type (Le Tartuffe), thousands of hypocrites stand behind him. The king, on the contrary, is not a type, but the only person in the state. It is impossible to imagine that he could know about all the Tartuffes. Thus, the tragicomic shade of the work is not removed by its happy ending.
The role, like all comedy, is written in Alexandrian verse, to which Moliere turned only in works that were intended for strict classicist critics and claimed a certain place in literature. Molière is unusually concise. Of the 1962 lines of Tartuffe's comedy, 272 complete and 19 incomplete lines belong (less than 15% of the text). For comparison: the role of Hamlet is five times more voluminous. And in Moliere's comedy itself, the role of Tartuffe is almost 100 lines less than the role of Orgon. The distribution of the text according to the actions is unexpected: completely absent from the stage in Acts I and II, Tartuffe dominates only in Act III (166 complete and 13 incomplete lines), his role is noticeably reduced in Act IV (89 complete and 5 incomplete lines) and almost disappears. in act V (17 complete and 1 incomplete line). However, the image of Tartuffe does not lose its power: it grows out of a synthetic alloy of his ideas, actions, reflections in the perception of other heroes, the catastrophic consequences of hypocrisy, as well as from the free information that viewers and readers add based on their personal experience.
In creating the image of Tartuffe, Molière relied on a centuries-old tradition originating in antiquity (“Characters” by Aristotle’s student Theophrastus). In the New Testament, religious hypocrisy (pharisaism) is condemned by Jesus Christ. Religious hypocrisy is ridiculed by Boccaccio in the form of Ceppelletto ("The Decameron"). Hypocrisy as a means of strengthening power was allowed by N. Machiavelli (“Prince”), Ignatius Loyola considered it acceptable for the activities of the Jesuit order founded by him. The secret “Society of Holy Gifts”, founded in 1629 by Duke Vantadour, rested on hypocrisy, which played a sinister role in the prohibition of comedy in 1664. Shakespeare created a stunning image of Richard III, one of the main means of which in the struggle for the throne was hypocrisy. French writers (Rabelais, Montaigne) dealt with this topic. Forced hypocrisy for the sake of the peace of the country was portrayed by Corneille in the tragedy "Cinna", where the emperor Augustus offers friendship to his enemy Cinna instead of executing him as a conspirator. Among the possible sources, the researchers name Scarron's story "The Hypocrites", in which the scoundrel and glutton Montufar fooled the parishioners under the guise of a humble monk. In 1669, when Moliere obtained permission to present the third edition of Tartuffe, the premiere of Racine's tragedy Britannique took place, where the hypocritical villain Nero was introduced. However, the image of Tartuffe is original and has no specific literary prototypes. This is also confirmed by the fact that Molière freely replaced the name of the hero in the second edition with another - Panyulf. Although the first and second editions of the comedy have not come down to us, the transition from a three-act composition (in the first edition) to a five-act composition shows that the plot of Tartuffe's image could change. Some studies attempt to find the prototype of Tartuffe in life. Named, for example, Prince Conti, who played a large role in the fate of the Moliere troupe (for some time it bore the name of this nobleman) and known for his hypocrisy.
The role of Tartuffe at the premiere of the first edition of the comedy (May 12, 1664, Versailles, 3 acts, the play is forbidden, the text has not been preserved) was played by Duparc (real name - Rene Berthelot). In the early comedies-farces of Moliere, he created the mask of Gros Rene, a good-natured fat man. The second version (“Deceiver”, 5.8.1667, Palais-Royal, Paris, 5 acts, the text is softened, the name Tartuffe is replaced by Panulf - Panulphe, a grandiose success, but a ban after the first performance) also did not survive. Duparc died in 1664, and Molière replaced him with the remarkable actor Ducroisy, who was the first to play the role of Tartuffe in the third edition that has come down to us (premiered 5 February 1669, Palais Royal). The success was huge, the biggest in the history of the Moliere troupe, during the life of Moliere the performance was shown on the stage of the Palais Royal 77 times - an unprecedented event for that time. In the future, on the stage of the Comédie Francaise, the comedy was performed about 10 times a year for more than three centuries, about 3000 performances were given. In this and other theaters, major actors shone in the role of Tartuffe. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, B.K. Coquelin Sr. gave the role of Tartuffe a touch of mysticism. E. A. O. Coquelin Jr. was more classical in the interpretation of the image of Tartuffe, E. Sylvain interpreted him as "an unbridled animal." In the 1920s, L. Guitry emphasized the everyday, concrete features of the character, giving him a resemblance to Balzac's Vautrin. J. Ionnel made Tartuffe a sinister figure. In 1950, L. Jouvet presented Tartuffe in a tragic way. One of the highest achievements of recent decades is the performance of the role of Tartuffe by Roger Planchon, who intensified the tragicomic sound both in this image and in the performance he staged as a whole. In Russia, the best performers of the role of Tartuffe are V. A. Karatygin, I. I. Sosnitsky, A. P. Lensky (XIX century), I. Pevtsov, M. N. Kedrov (XX century). In the alteration of A. S. Norov, the role of Fariseev was played by P. S. Mochalov, V. N. Davydov. The production of "Tartuffe" at the Moscow Art Theater (premiered in 1939) was the last work of K. S. Stanislavsky, his artistic testament.
Text: Molière J. B. Sobr. cit.: V 2 t. M., 1957. T. 2.
Vl. A. Lukov
Works and heroes: Heroes.
Created in the 60s of the 17th century, the comedy Tartuffe, or the Deceiver, became one of the most famous plays by the French playwright. In it, Moliere subjected to merciless criticism the most disgusting human vices: hypocrisy, greed, meanness, stupidity, voluptuousness, selfishness, timidity.
Each of the heroes of the comedy is the bearer of one dominant character trait. In this division of characters into positive and negative, the main features of classicism reveal themselves - a literary trend that does not involve the psychological development of characters. The central character - Tartuffe - appears to the reader as a creature devoid of any human virtues. The imaginary saint is the receptacle of a whole host of vices: he burns with passion for the wife of his benefactor, he does not hesitate to rob the one who gave him a table and shelter, finally, he is not afraid of either earthly power or heavenly judgment, sinning both before people and before God . Tartuffe's life motto: "Sin quietly, and you will get away with everything!". The vile deceiver in the comedy is opposed by Mariana's maid, Dorina - a smart and lively girl. She alone, throughout all five acts, manages to resist Tartuffe at least verbally. The rest of the characters cannot cope with him with the whole family: the head of the noble Orgon family is too gullible and stupid to see someone else's meanness; his son Damis is excessively impulsive and hot; his daughter Mariana, on the contrary, is timid and bashful; his wife Elmira prefers to take a detached life position and not worry about such trifles as someone else's love and meanness. Elmira's brother, Cleanthe, like most nobles, is honest and smart, but lacks the inner gift of persuasion. The fiance of Mariana Valer, as a noble man, does not even think about bringing Tartuffe to clean water, because he will thereby interfere in the affairs of a strange family. Each of the heroes of the comedy, until the very end, behaves as if he does not dare to believe in the incredible hypocrisy of the imaginary saint and the impenetrable stupidity of his patron Orgon. When in the finale the family is on the verge of ruin and arrest, only the intervention of the king cuts the network of malicious intrigues of Tartuffe. In this denouement, Moliere reveals himself as a true classicist: he endows the monarch with a number of virtues - truthfulness, insight, a heightened sense of justice, and love for good. In a sense, the king becomes God in Moliere's comedy, whose name Tartuffe hides behind in order to achieve the desired wealth and woman.
The comedy genre does not prevent "Tartuffe, or the Deceiver" from organically entering the classic system of works. On the contrary, the appeal to the "low" strata of literary creativity allowed Molière to present before the viewer an example of a social comedy, which equally well shows both the internal failure of the upper social class and the inexhaustible thirst for life of the lower class (in the person of Dorina and the ruined Tartuffe). The heroes of "Tartuffe" are not sublime heroes of high classic genres, they are the most ordinary people living their small, private lives, but not becoming less interesting because of this.
Among the classic features in "Tartuffe" is the principle of three unities - time, place and action. The artistic time of the comedy does not exceed a day. The artistic space is limited by the house of Orgon, where, if necessary, all the other characters come - Madame Pernel, Valère, the bailiff - Mr. Loyal, an officer sent by the king. The plot of "Tartuffe" develops in "one breath": events follow each other as naturally as possible. At the same time, the composition of the work is particularly original: in the first act, the viewer gets acquainted with the problem called "Tartuffe" from the words of the Orgon family, in the second it becomes a witness of how detrimental the imaginary saint's influence is on the life of a noble family, in the third - finally, Tartuffe himself reveals his true essence in front of Damis, in the fourth - Orgon is convinced of the meanness of Tartuffe, in the fifth comes the long-awaited denouement, starting with a tragedy and ending with a standard ending for classicism - the triumph of good over evil.
Actually the comedy "Tartuffe, or the Deceiver" is in the first four acts. The fifth act is more like a tragedy. There is nothing funny in it, and even Dorina's constantly sounding, mocking voice is not heard so clearly in the fifth act. Mariana's maid is a real mouthpiece of reason in comedy, not afraid to speak the truth in the face of everyone who needs it. Most of the comedic situations in "Tartuffe" are associated with the artistic image of Dorina and her caustic comments that reveal the true essence of what is happening.
A special place in "Tartuffe" is occupied by anti-clerical ideas. Under the guise of the main villain of the comedy lies the image of a cunning and greedy monk who only hides behind faith to commit his meanness, well known to many (both to Molière's contemporaries and people of the 21st century). Initially, Tartuffe was a priest, but under the influence of disgruntled religious people, Molière changed his image to a worldly one, making the hero simply a "pious man." According to Dorina's apt observation, Tartuffe is not the only such deceitful public character: an acquaintance of Madame Pernel, a certain old woman Oranta, does not sin simply because she has already passed the age when she could do it. Orgon's brother-in-law, Cleanthe, behaves like a true believer in comedy: he periodically tries to operate with basic Christian provisions that allow him to denounce the hypocrisy of Tartuffe and the stupidity of Orgon. But the latter is too blinded by the imaginary holiness of his idol, and the former is too cunning to fall for the bait of an honest person.
Year of writing:
1664
Reading time:
Description of the work:
The play Tartuffe was written by Moliere in 1664. This play is one of the most popular, as it was staged by almost all theaters. Even today it can be found in the repertoires of theaters. Due to the final denouement of the play, it is a comedy.
We invite you to familiarize yourself with the summary of the play Tartuffe.
At the invitation of the owner, a certain Mr. Tartuffe settled in the house of the venerable Orgon. Orgon did not cherish the soul in him, considering him an incomparable example of righteousness and wisdom: Tartuffe's speeches were exceptionally sublime, teachings - thanks to which Orgon learned that the world is a big garbage pit, and now he would not blink an eye, having buried his wife, children and other relatives - extremely useful, piety aroused admiration; and how selflessly Tartuffe observed the morality of the Orgon family...
Of all the members of the household, Orgon's admiration for the newly-born righteous was shared, however, only by his mother, Madame Pernel. Elmira, Orgon's wife, her brother Cleanthe, Orgon's children Damis and Mariana, and even the servants saw in Tartuffe who he really was - a hypocritical saint who deftly uses Orgon's delusion in his simple earthly interests: to eat deliciously and sleep softly, to have a reliable roof over your head and some other benefits.
Orgon's household was utterly sick of Tartuffe's moralizing; with his worries about decency, he drove almost all his friends away from home. But as soon as someone spoke badly about this zealot of piety, Madame Pernel made violent scenes, and Orgon, he simply remained deaf to any speeches that were not imbued with admiration for Tartuffe. When Orgon returned from a short absence and demanded a report on home news from Dorina's maid, the news of his wife's illness left him completely indifferent, while the story of how Tartuffe happened to overeat at dinner, then sleep until noon, and sort out wine at breakfast, filled Orgon with compassion for the poor fellow.
Orgon's daughter, Mariana, was in love with a noble young man named Valera, and her brother Damis was in love with her sister Valera. Orgon seemed to have already agreed to the marriage of Mariana and Valera, but for some reason he kept postponing the wedding. Damis, worried about his own fate - his marriage to his sister Valera was supposed to follow the wedding of Mariana - asked Cleantes to find out from Orgon what was the reason for the delay. Orgon answered questions so evasively and unintelligibly that Cleanthes suspected that he had decided otherwise to dispose of his daughter's future.
How exactly Orgon sees the future of Mariana became clear when he told his daughter that Tartuffe's perfections needed a reward, and his marriage to her, Mariana, would be such a reward. The girl was stunned, but did not dare to argue with her father. Dorina had to intervene for her: the maid tried to explain to Orgon that to marry Mariana to Tartuffe - a beggar, a freak with a low soul - would mean becoming the subject of ridicule of the whole city, and besides, pushing her daughter onto the path of sin, because no matter how virtuous the girl was, she would not cuckolding a hubby like Tartuffe is simply impossible. Dorina spoke very passionately and convincingly, but, despite this, Orgon remained adamant in his determination to intermarry with Tartuffe.
Mariana was ready to submit to the will of her father - as her daughter's duty told her. Submission, dictated by natural timidity and reverence for her father, tried to overcome Dorina in her, and she almost succeeded in doing this, unfolding vivid pictures of the marital happiness prepared for him and Tartuffe in front of Mariana.
But when Valer asked Mariana if she was going to submit to the will of Orgon, the girl replied that she did not know. In a fit of despair, Valer advised her to do as her father orders, while he himself will find a bride for himself who will not change this word; Mariana replied that she would only be glad of this, and as a result, the lovers almost parted forever, but then Dorina arrived in time. She convinced young people of the need to fight for their happiness. But they only need to act not directly, but in a roundabout way, to play for time, and then something will certainly work out, because everyone - Elmira, and Cleanthe, and Damis - is against the absurd plan of Orgon,
Damis, even too determined, was going to properly rein in Tartuffe so that he forgot to think about marrying Mariana. Dorina tried to cool his ardor, to suggest that more could be achieved by cunning than by threats, but she did not succeed in convincing him of this to the end.
Suspecting that Tartuffe was not indifferent to Orgon's wife, Dorina asked Elmira to talk to him and find out what he himself thought about marriage with Mariana. When Dorina told Tartuffe that the lady wanted to talk to him face to face, the saint perked up. At first, scattering before Elmira in ponderous compliments, he did not let her open her mouth, but when she finally asked a question about Mariana, Tartuffe began to assure her that his heart was captivated by another. To Elmira's bewilderment - how is it that a man of a holy life is suddenly seized with carnal passion? - her admirer answered with fervor that yes, he is pious, but at the same time, after all, he is also a man, that they say the heart is not a flint ... Immediately, bluntly, Tartuffe invited Elmira to indulge in the delights of love. In response, Elmira asked how, according to Tartuffe, her husband would behave when he heard about his vile harassment. The frightened gentleman begged Elmira not to destroy him, and then she offered a deal: Orgon would not know anything, while Tartuffe, for his part, would try to get Mariana to marry Valera as soon as possible.
Damis ruined everything. He overheard the conversation and, indignant, rushed to his father. But, as was to be expected, Orgon believed not his son, but Tartuffe, who this time surpassed himself in hypocritical self-abasement. In anger, he ordered Damis to get out of sight and announced that Tartuffe would marry Mariana that same day. As a dowry, Orgon gave his future son-in-law all his fortune.
For the last time, Cleante tried to talk like a human being with Tartuffe and convince him to reconcile with Damis, to give up unjustly acquired property and from Mariana - after all, it is not appropriate for a Christian to use a quarrel between a father and son for his own enrichment, and even more so to doom a girl to lifelong torment. But Tartuffe, a noble rhetorician, had an excuse for everything.
Mariana begged her father not to give her to Tartuffe - let him take the dowry, and she would rather go to the monastery. But Orgon, having learned something from his pet, without blinking an eye, convinced the poor thing of the soul-saving life with a husband who only causes disgust - after all, mortification of the flesh is only useful. Finally, Elmira could not stand it - as soon as her husband does not believe the words of his loved ones, he should personally verify the baseness of Tartuffe. Convinced that he would have to make sure just the opposite - in the high morality of the righteous - Orgon agreed to crawl under the table and from there eavesdrop on the conversation that Elmira and Tartuffe would have in private.
Tartuffe immediately pecked at Elmira's feigned speeches that she supposedly had a strong feeling for him, but at the same time he showed a certain prudence: before refusing to marry Mariana, he wanted to receive from her stepmother, so to speak, a tangible pledge of tender feelings. As for the violation of the commandment, which would involve the delivery of this pledge, then, as Tartuffe assured Elmira, he had his own ways of dealing with heaven.
What Orgon heard from under the table was enough to finally break his blind faith in the sanctity of Tartuffe. He ordered the scoundrel to get away immediately, he tried to justify himself, but now it was useless. Then Tartuffe changed his tone and, before proudly departing, promised to cruelly get even with Orgon.
Tartuffe's threat was not unfounded: firstly, Orgon had already managed to straighten the donation to his house, which from today belonged to Tartuffe; secondly, he entrusted the vile villain with a casket with papers exposing his own brother, who was forced to leave the country for political reasons.
We had to urgently look for a way out. Damis volunteered to beat Tartuffe and discourage his desire to harm, but Cleante stopped the young man - with the mind, he argued, you can achieve more than with your fists. Orgon's household had not yet come up with anything when the bailiff, Mr. Loyal, appeared on the threshold of the house. He brought an order to vacate M. Tartuffe's house by tomorrow morning. At this point, not only Damis's hands began to itch, but also Dorina's, and even Orgon himself.
As it turned out, Tartuffe did not fail to use the second opportunity he had to ruin the life of his recent benefactor: Valere brought the news that the villain had given the king a chest of papers, and now Orgon is facing arrest for aiding the rebel brother. Orgon decided to run before it was too late, but the guards got ahead of him: the officer who entered announced that he was under arrest.
Together with the royal officer, Tartuffe also came to Orgon's house. The family, including Madame Pernel, who finally began to see clearly, began to shame the hypocritical villain in unison, listing all his sins. Tom soon got tired of this, and he turned to the officer with a request to protect his person from vile attacks, but in response, to his great - and everyone's - amazement, he heard that he had been arrested.
As the officer explained, in fact, he did not come for Orgon, but in order to see how Tartuffe comes to the end in his shamelessness. The wise king, the enemy of lies and the bulwark of justice, from the very beginning had suspicions about the identity of the scammer and turned out to be right, as always - under the name of Tartuffe was hiding a scoundrel and a swindler, on whose account a great many dark deeds. With his power, the sovereign terminated the donation to the house and forgave Orgon for indirect aiding the rebellious brother.
Tartuffe was sent to prison in disgrace, but Orgon had no choice but to praise the wisdom and generosity of the monarch, and then bless the union of Valera and Mariana.
You have read the summary of the play Tartuffe. In the section of our site - brief contents, you can familiarize yourself with the presentation of other famous works.
Question number 7. The work of Molière.
Molière comes from a wealthy, educated family. When Molière was 15 years old. The father insisted that he go to Sarbona. Molière graduated from the faculty of journalism successfully, but when he was 19, a very sharp turn took place in his life, he "fell ill" with the theater. A theater from the provinces toured Paris. Molière left home for 10 years and remained in the provinces. Performances were given either in the threshing floor, or in the knight's hall, or somewhere else. Molière returned to Paris at the age of 30. Gradually, Moliere began to write plays, comedies, he himself played as a comic actor.
One of the earliest comedies was "funny coynesses" - comedy lessons, characters for the first years of Moliere's stay in Paris (a lesson for wives and a lesson for husbands), the comedy "Georges Danden" was written in the same vein. Her hero, a wealthy farmer, a relatively young and ambitious man, decided to marry a noblewoman at any cost. And he makes his dream come true. An impoverished noblewoman marries wealthy Georges. On marrying, she accepts to settle scores with Georges Dandin - he is ignorant for her, ignoramus: she utters her displeasure to her husband and believes that lovers should have compensation for the sacrifices. She cuckolds her husband at any opportunity. The image of the main character is drawn in a special way. This is a person prone to self-reflection: he blames himself first of all. This makes him vulnerable and unhappy at the same time and increases the reader's attitude towards the hero. "You yourself wanted it, Georges Danden."
A special place in the work of Molière is occupied by Amphitrion. Husband of Alcmene (mother of Hercules). No one encroaches on her honor and beauty, she was a faithful wife. Zeus falls in love with Alcmene and decides that she should be his. Zeus took the form of Amphitryon. The comedy "Amphitrion" was a work both gallant and ambiguous: it depicted Louis 14 in the image of the resourceful Zeus. The king was flattered by this work, and this comedy was on. In the first years of his stay in Paris, Molière and his theater enjoyed the sympathy of the king, the king attended performances, especially loved comedy-ballet.
For example, "The Imaginary Sick" - the main character is a person who has only one ailment - unthinkable suspiciousness. He dies all day without harm to health. Understands that this is a pretense, only a maid. She guesses how an imaginary patient can be cured at once: he must be initiated into an oriental doctor. At the end of the comedy, a whole group of doctors enter the sick room, they are armed with professional weapons - tweezers. All this guard dances and sings, dedicating the patient to the ta-to-shi clan, that is, to the enlightened doctors. In macaronic language - French + Lat. These dances were comedy-ballets. The age of Louis 14 was the age of ballets, rather peculiar. In these ballets the king, queen, princes, ambassadors dance. The courtiers contemplated.
The favor of the king was so great that he was twice the godfather of the children of Molière, allocating sumina, but the children of Molière a did not survive.
In the 70s. royal reverence has come to an end, this is due to the comedy "Tartuffe". When the first version came out, an immediate ban followed. The comedy was seen as a satire on the authority of the church. The second option also did not pass followed by a ban. And in order to ensure the economic stability of the troupe, he writes the comedy Don Juan in 40 days, then creates the third version of Tartuffe.
Molière died almost on stage: acting as the main character of The Imaginary Sick and finishing the play, the pains were real, and after that the curtain was closed and he was transferred to his house.
They could not find a single priest for Moliere to confess, but when the priest arrived, Moliere had already died. Based on this, the church refused to bury him in the cemetery, he was buried in the cemetery, but not on sacred ground.
high comedy by Molière. The play "Tartuffe".
the following comedies by Molière develop in the tradition of the "School of Husbands" and "School of Wives". The plot outline is typical: an elderly man finds himself an orphan and tries to raise a wife out of her to his liking, but she finds herself a young lover. In such plays, the canon of high comedy is formed. These are five-act plays in verse, and they reproduce socially typical characters. Moliere creates examples of high comedy in 1664-1670.
The play "Tartuffe" existed in three editions. The first of them was staged in 1664 on the occasion of the name day of Anna of Austria. In this play, the queen mother saw an attack on her "Society of Holy Gifts", which spread the ideas of piety, but in fact served as a secret detective. Persecution began against Moliere, and he was forced to create a new edition of the comedy, which was released in 1666. The main character from a priest becomes a nobleman, the most acute moments are softened, three acts are added. The third edition of the play was staged in 1669. The play turned into a kind of debate about Tartuffe and the nature of hypocrisy. As a result, Tartuffe did not appear in the first two acts. There were only opinions about him and mores in which Tartuffe could appear - blind submission to power, inability to determine the truth.
Orgon, in his friendship with Tartuffe, looks at the external manifestations of his holiness. The maid Dorina plays an active role in the intrigue. Tartuffe becomes the steward of Orgon's house. Moliere shows doublethink, when a person's actions diverge from his true nature. Tartuffe's philosophy is based on undisguised self-interest and the ability to control other people's destinies. The only obstacle for him is publicity. All his actions are motivated by some good intentions. Tartuffe's behavior is the behavior of a kind of provocateur. It causes a certain reaction by its actions, and it can be caught only with the involvement of human experience. But at the end of the play, Tartuffe turns into a political force. For reasons of censorship, Molière introduces a good denouement, but doublethink cannot be eradicated. This was the first experience of political comedy, which did not take root in the time of Louis XIV.
An example of "high comedy" is Tartuffe. The struggle for the production of Tartuffe went on from 1664 to 1669; counting on the resolution of the comedy, Moliere reworked it three times, but could not soften his opponents. The opponents of "Tartuffe" were powerful people - members of the Society of the Holy Gifts, a kind of secular branch of the Jesuit order, which acted as an unspoken morality police, planted church morality and the spirit of asceticism, hypocritically proclaiming that it was fighting heretics, enemies of the church and the monarchy. The denunciations of secret agents of this society caused a lot of evil, so that contemporaries called it a "conspiracy of saints." But the Jesuits during this period reigned supreme in the religious life of France, confessors of the royal family were appointed from among them, and the Queen Mother, Anna of Austria, personally patronized the Society of the Holy Gifts. Therefore, although the king liked the play, first presented at a court festival in 1664, Louis could not go against the churchmen who convinced him that the play was attacking not hypocrisy, but religiosity in general, for the time being. Only when the king temporarily quarreled with the Jesuits and a period of relative tolerance came in his religious policy, "Tartuffe" was finally staged in its current, third edition, edition. This comedy was the hardest for Moliere and brought him the greatest success in his lifetime.
"Tartuffe" in one of the dialects of southern France means "swindler", "deceiver". So, already by the name of the play, Moliere defines the character of the protagonist, who walks in a secular dress and is a very recognizable portrait of a member of the "cabal of saints". Tartuffe, pretending to be a righteous man, enters the house of the wealthy bourgeois Orgon and completely subjugates the owner, who transfers his property to Tartuffe. The nature of Tartuffe is obvious to all Orgon's household - the hypocrite only manages to deceive the owner and his mother, Madame Pernel. Orgon breaks with everyone who dares to tell him the truth about Tartuffe, and even expels his son from home. To prove his devotion to Tartuffe, he decides to intermarry with him, to give him his daughter Mariana as his wife. To prevent this marriage, Mariana's stepmother, Orgon's second wife, Elmira, whom Tartuffe has been secretly courting for a long time, undertakes to expose him in front of her husband, and in a farcical scene, when Orgon is hiding under the table, Elmira provokes Tartuffe to immodest proposals, forcing him to make sure of his shamelessness and betrayal. But, having driven him out of the house, Orgon endangers his own well-being - Tartuffe claims the rights to his property, a bailiff comes to Orgon with an eviction order, besides, Tartuffe blackmails Orgon with someone else's secret carelessly entrusted to him, and only the intervention of the wise king, giving the order to arrest the famous rogue, on whose account a whole list of "shameless deeds", saves the house of Orgon from collapse and provides a happy ending to the comedy.
Characters in classic comedy express, as a rule, one characteristic feature. Tartuffe in Molière embodies the universal human vice of hypocrisy, hiding behind religious hypocrisy, and in this sense its character is clearly indicated from the very beginning, does not develop throughout the action, but only reveals itself deeper with each scene in which Tartuffe participates. The topical features in the image, associated with the denunciation of the activities of the Society of the Holy Gifts, have long faded into the background, but it is important to note them from the point of view of the poetics of classicism. Many other characters of the comedy are also one-linear: the usual roles of young lovers are represented by the images of Mariana and her fiancé Valera, the lively maid is the image of Dorina; the reasoner, that is, the character who "pronounces" the moral lesson of what is happening to the viewer, is Elmira's brother, Cleante. However, in every play by Moliere there is a role that he played himself, and the character of this character is always the most vital, dramatic, the most ambiguous in the play. In "Tartuffe" Moliere played Orgon.
Orgon - in practical terms, an adult, successful in business, the father of the family - at the same time embodies the spiritual lack of self-sufficiency, as a rule, characteristic of children. This is the type of person who needs a leader. Whoever turns out to be this leader, people like Orgon are imbued with boundless gratitude for him and trust their idol more than their closest ones. Orgon lacks his own inner content, which he tries to compensate for by faith in the goodness and infallibility of Tartuffe. Orgon is spiritually dependent, he does not know himself, is easily suggestible and becomes a victim of self-blindness. Without gullible orgones, there are no tartuffe deceivers. In Orgon, Moliere creates a special type of comic character, which is characterized by the truth of his personal feelings with their objective falsity, and his torments are perceived by the viewer as an expression of moral retribution, the triumph of a positive principle. In this regard, A. S. Pushkin's remark is very fair: "High comedy is not based solely on laughter, but on the development of characters - and, quite often, it comes close to tragedy."
In form, "Tartuffe" strictly adheres to the classic rule of three unities: the action takes one day and takes place entirely in the house of Orgon, the only deviation from the unity of action is the line of love misunderstandings between Valera and Mariana. The comedy is written, as always with Moliere, in simple, clear and natural language.
The clergy never forgave Moliere "Tartuffe": when he died in February 1673 (during the fourth performance of his last play "The Imaginary Sick", he bled in his throat, and they barely managed to carry him home, but he did not have time to confess), the archbishop of Paris gave permission for the funeral of the playwright in church land only by order of the king.
In 1680, the King issued a decree merging the theater of Molière with the leading theater specialized in staging tragedies, the Burgundy Hotel, and thus the Comédie Française was born, the oldest French theater, which is also called the "House of Molière" and whose repertoire always includes his plays.
Creativity Moliere, being one of the highest achievements of classicism, goes far beyond its scope. Each era finds its own Moliere, depending on the time, one or another of his plays are especially relevant. The most aesthetically sensitive contemporaries of the great playwright predicted exactly such a future for him, as evidenced by the dialogue that took place after the death of Molière between Louis XIV and Nicolas Boileau. The king asked:
Who is the greatest writer who has glorified my reign?
— Molière, sir.
I didn't think so, but you understand this better than I do.
