seen in the introduction, not only of songs and phrases in French into the Italian play, but of whole scenes.1 It is true that this may be considered a development of the habit of Italian farce, which had from the origin represented characters as speaking in their provincial dialect, and it may also belong in part to the development of written plays from impromptu farce. Italian epic had freely used French and Provençal for treating episodes in the main action, and the French comic drama had included foreign characters speaking their own language. So Jacques Grévin, in the sixteenth century included in the characters of Les Ébahis, Panthaleone, who used both French and Italian.3 But the habit among the Italian players in Paris marks the moment when the influence of Molière had become the strongest dramatic influence there, and the Italians were yielding to it. So an Italian play, La Creduta Maschio, developing the plot of Dépit Amoureux, was certainly presented later than Molière's piece, and a version of Don Juan was played by Italian actors after Molière's first sketch of the play had been given. After Molière's death in 1673 Lulli and the opera occupied the Salle du Palais-Royal, and the French and Italian players moved to a room near the Rue de Guénégaud, where they acted on alternate days up to 1680, when a separation took place. In course of time the repertory of the Italians 1 This happened from 1668 onwards; for example, in Il Teatro senza Commedia. 2 Possibly in imitation of Dante, Fazio degli Uberti, in his Dittamondo, included sections in French and Provençal (probably written about 1350). 3 Act ii, sc. 3; act v, sc. 1. See also Munday's adaptation of Il Fedele, under the name of The pleasaunt and fine conceited comedie of Two Italian Gentlemen, where Latin and Italian phrases are used by the characters. The date is 1584. Formerly the Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille. 5 The troupe of the Théâtre Guénégaud joined that of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and then became known as the Comédie Française. came to consist almost entirely of French pieces, and presented the plays of Dufresny, Regnard, and others, in which French satire and criticism of life had entirely overcome the spirit of the old Commedia dell' arte. In 1697 this was perhaps the cause of the downfall of the Italian company, for they were forbidden to play, on the ground that allusions had been seen in a play called La Fausse Prude to Madame de Maintenon.1 We may attribute to the Italians, especially during the earlier years of Molière's time in Paris, considerable influence over the great French dramatist's method. Undoubtedly the mass of dramatic material at hand, the competition with actors belonging to a nation so quick to turn incident to dramatic account, the existence of wellknown stage types of which it was legitimate to make useall this drew Molière in a certain direction, or rather perhaps withdrew him from the effort to give himself to high comedy, which Boileau had desired for him. His characters come upon the stage and explain themselves with an Italian rapidity of action: their names are Italian with the termination softened to French: the Italian types are all there. But in Molière's development we can see much more than this. He constructs on the stage what is to become the material for a theory of comedy distinct from the English, the Spanish, or the Italian ideals: nearest, perhaps, in spirit to the English, in its inclusion of many planes of interest and many impressions of life on the stage, but dominated always by the conscious art that is especially characteristic of France. Within the play itself are all the elements which arouse reflection, which produce a sense of what is true and false in life, of what is beautiful, and of what is abhorrent and evil. Each play is itself material for a moral and rational judgement. In order to obtain a balanced view of 1 See note 2, p. 263. 116 MOLIÈRE AND FRENCH AND ITALIAN STAGE life, it is not necessary to contrast with the play the life of the audience, or the beauty and the sorrow of the real world, as is the case in Shakespeare's earlier comedies. These impressions of reality in life are faithfully reflected in Molière's plays themselves, however limited his frame, with all their shades of colour and their scales of feeling. Molière thus produces a representation which is adequate to his material even if he is constrained to use only a few tones or to make images in low relief. The conditions of dramatic representation on the stage are to Molière the only true and legitimate limitations of his art. CHAPTER VI MOLIÈRE, FROM L'ÉCOLE DES MARIS TO LE MISANTHROPE L'École des Maris, first acted in 1661, is the first play of Molière's in which we see him working with complete artistic freedom. It is true that he may have owed somethingcertainly not much-to earlier writers who had made use of a similar theme.1 But Molière has taken this situation of comedy and developed it, as he so often did, in a way to give it moral as well as dramatic significance. For instance, a scene in the second act may be traced to one of Boccaccio's stories, used already by Lope de Vega; Isabelle in L'École des Maris sends a letter to her lover by her guardian under pretext of returning one she has received, and will not open.2 But the ruse of Isabelle (as well as the relation of the two guardians) is made to serve a new purpose in Molière, for Isabelle and Valère may legitimately love one another; while in Lope de Vega's story the rivals are father and son, and the conduct of the heroine in making a tool of the father somewhat strains probability as well as good taste. The two guardians in Molière are also elderly lovers, but an attempt is made in L'École des Maris to discern whether confidence and kindness on the part of the elders will arouse confidence and kindness in return. Lisette, who is the soubrette of the new order, just outside the main action, and therefore able to look upon it with cool sense and judgement, 1 In the Adelphi of Terence there are two brothers of dissimilar character, who try educational experiments on two young wards. In the case of Terence the wards were boys. 2 Act ii. expresses the view held by a reasonable woman of the restrictions used by Sganarelle.1 L'Ecole des Maris, then, like so many of Molière's plays, proposes an ethical question to us in scenes of pure comedy. The setting is still that of the Italian piazzetta, though we are told la scène est à Paris. The house of Valère no doubt occupied one side of the square, and those of Sganarelle and Ariste the other. The action took place in the open air, and it is to be noticed that Molière's dramatic incidents are carefully moulded to lend colour to the probability of this. So in Act ii Sganarelle's anger and jealousy are dramatically used to prevent him from accepting Valère's courteous suggestion that he should enter the house.2 3 Again, the encounters by night which some critics have thought improbable in Molière's play were necessitated by the Italian arrangement of scenery round an open square. So Isabelle meets Sganarelle on her way to see Valère, and a commissaire and a notaire appear in the square at the psychological moment when their services are required.1 All the action is in this open space.5 1 Act i, sc. 2. 2 Valère. Voulez-vous pas entrer ? Sganarelle. Non, je n'irai pas plus loin. Act ii, sc. 2. 3 'Des scènes nocturnes d'une invraisemblance choquante' (Auger, t. ii, p. 364, Œuvres de Molière). 4 Act iii. 5 It may probably be a result of seventeenth-century tradition in France that the stage there is much less encumbered with furniture and accessories than in England. A troupe of French actors are so accustomed to make excellent by-play without stage properties, and also to play up to the main group and action on the stage that the accessories, which are a haven of refuge to the English actor when he attempts to fill in a pause, would only be in the way on a French stage. The peculiar circular walk by which an English actor expresses distress of mind, and which enables him to negotiate a mass of furniture, is a thing unknown in ordinary life, |