| dc.description.abstract |
Critical studies on the comic drama of the seventeenth-century French playwright, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere (1622-1673), center attention on biography, production, stylistics, and thematic development. Because of the diversity of themes, and because of the considerable productivity of this dramatist, the analyses of the style and substance of these comedies have often been focused on the use of themes or techniques employed in a single comedy or associated with one single sort of comedy. This thesis, "Farce, critique sociale, et ccm6die morale chez Moliere," proposes to deepen, in two ways, our appreciation of Moliere's combined use of themes and techniques that, in turn, create three sorts of comic modes. First, through a close reading of three of Moliere's major plays (Le medecin malgre lul, Les Precieuses ridicules, and Misanthrope), this thesis attempts to describe the techniques that develop and elucidate a particular comic focus, and thereby enhances our awareness of Moliere's recognition of the necessary relationship between theme and technique in the creation of comedy. The description of this use of comic techniques and the subsequent development of themes encourage classification of these representative plays into three sorts: farce, social comedy, and moral comedy. Such a classification thus expands the narrow perspective of criticism, and encourages a study of the necessary relationship between theme and technique and, perhaps, will suggest future study of the development of Moliere's comic artistry. |
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