Molière (Vol. 64) - James F. Gaines (essay date 1993)

James F. Gaines (essay date 1993)

SOURCE: “Caractères, Superstition and Paradoxes in Le Misanthrope,” in Alteratives, edited by Warren Motte and Gerald Prince, French Forum Publishers, 1993, pp. 71-84.

[In this essay, Gaines argues that the series of oppositions and dualities in The Misanthrope comprise a deliberate pattern of paradoxes.]

Beginning with Rousseau's Lettre à d'Alembert and continuing through modern studies by Jules Brody and others,1 it has been common critical practice to analyze Le Misanthrope as a system of conflicting dualities: Alceste against the rest of the characters, sincerity versus dissimulation, ethical versus esthetic principles, homme de bien versus honnêtes hommes. This tradition of analysis by antinomies is carried to a ridiculous extreme in Fabre d'Eglantine's drama of the revolutionary era, Le Philinte de Molière, where the evil...

[The entire page is 6085 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass