Women and Irony in Molière's Comedies of Marriage

This is a book about how Molière, France's most celebrated author of comedies, made something strikingly new out of the traditional comedy plot of thwarted courtship. Though justly celebrated for his mastery of physical comedy and farce, one of Molière's key moves was to pay attention to the way women could use language. Seventeenth-century France was a time when speaking well became exceptionally important, and in this arena women were the trend-setters. Among the most important places to display taste and social skills were the salons, gatherings presided over by women. Yet women still enjoyed little in the way of rights, particularly regarding a central decision in their lives: the choice of a husband. French regulations of marriage contracts became increasingly restrictive, largely to the detriment of women. To draw attention to their plight, women novelists and essayists presented case studies in how men and women misunderstood one another, how women were coerced to wed, how marriages could become nightmares, and how courtships could fail. Against this fraught social background Molière showed women using one of the few assets they had, their mastery of words, and in particular the rhetoric of irony, to frustrate the plans of fathers, guardians, and other authority figures. The comedies discussed here include very well-known plays such as The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, The Learned Ladies, The School for Wives and Don Juan, and also less known but revealing and thought-provoking works such as The School for Husbands, George Dandin and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.

John D. Lyons, Commonwealth Professor of French (emeritus), University of Virginia

After his Ph.D. at Yale University, John Lyons taught French and Italian at Dartmouth College, where he also served as chair of the Comparative Literature Program. During part of that time he was also Director of the Centre Américain du Cinéma in Paris. In 1987 he joined the Department of French at the University of Virginia, becoming Commonwealth Professor in 1992. His research has been funded by the NEH, the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. In 2007 he was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Schools for Marriage
1. L'École des maris: The School of Preterition
2. L'École des femmes: Idiocy and After
Part II: Courtship and Therapy
3. Le Misanthrope: Two Versions of Pastoral
4. Don Garcie de Navarre: Female Reason and Male Pathology
Part III: Freedom to Marry
5. Les Femmes savantes: Role Reversal and Tyranny
6. George Dandin: The Marriage Market
7. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac: Desire as Defence
8. Les Précieuses ridicules: The Demand for Courtship
Part IV: Being Married
9. Le Tartuffe: Negotiating for Freedom
10. Amphitryon: The Problem of the Perfect Lover
Conclusion: Adversaries or Allies? Don Juan and Célimène
Bibliography
Index