Tartuffe

Tartuffe
Public domain · source
Name	Tartuffe
Writer	Molière
Premiere	1664
Original language	French
Subject	Hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, deception

Tartuffe is a five-act comedic play by Molière that premiered in 1664 and satirizes religious hypocrisy and social deceit. The play intersects with contemporary controversies surrounding Louis XIV, Catholic Church, Jansenism, French court, and Académie française debates while engaging with traditions from Commedia dell'arte, Molière's oeuvre, and 17th-century French theatre. Its provenance involves figures such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Madame de Maintenon, and institutions like the Palace of Versailles and the Paris Parliament.

Background and Creation

Molière wrote the play during a period marked by tensions between Louis XIV's court, conservative clerical authorities represented by the French clergy, and intellectual circles including the Académie française and salons of Madame de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette. Influences include dramatic models such as Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes, and the Italian Commedia dell'arte commedia traditions practiced in France by itinerant troupes and resident companies at venues like the Comédie-Française. Patronage networks involving Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and court collaborators such as Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe II, Duke of Orléans shaped rehearsal conditions and musical interludes. Early readings and revisions engaged personalities such as Madame de Montespan, Cardinal Mazarin's memory in court politics, and juridical interventions by the Parlement of Paris.

Plot

Set in contemporary Parisan bourgeois household, the narrative follows Orgon’s welcome of a pious-sounding impostor into his home, triggering familial conflict, legal threats, and a climactic resolution involving royal intervention. Act-by-act developments echo structural precedents from French classical tragedy and comic set pieces common to companies at the Palais-Royal and Comédie-Française: domestic scenes, comic quarrels, secret-keeping, and a dénouement with an authority figure reminiscent of episodes involving Louis XIV intervening in disputes. Subplots reference marriage negotiations, property disputes, and the exposure of hypocrisy through characters who pursue justice via legal instruments recognized by institutions such as the Parlement de Paris and royal officers.

Characters

Principal figures include Orgon, a head of household whose credulity enables the impostor; Elmire, his pragmatic wife; Dorine, a sharp-witted maid reminiscent of servants in Commedia dell'arte; and the eponymous pious fraud associated with clerical affectations. Secondary personae evoke social types familiar from Molière's repertoire and European dramatic tradition: sceptical relatives, scheming suitors, and authority figures paralleling magistrates of the Parlement or courtiers at Versailles. The cast structure reflects character functions found in works by Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and comic predecessors such as Ben Jonson and Niccolò Machiavelli's influence on Italianate plots.

Themes and Analysis

The play interrogates religious hypocrisy, private morality, public reputation, and the interplay of sincerity and performance, engaging with contemporary disputes between Jesuits and Jansenists, clerical privilege contested by the Parlement of Paris, and courtly values promoted at Versailles. Molière uses irony, farce, and rhetorical clash in ways comparable to satirical impulses in Jonathan Swift and classical invective from Aristophanes. Dramatic techniques echo debates in French classicism about the unities of time, place, and action articulated by critics tied to the Académie française and exemplified in tragic practice by Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille. The play’s moral ambiguity has invited readings linking it to Enlightenment critiques later advanced by figures like Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and Montesquieu while stimulating performance theories developed by practitioners from the Comédie-Française to modern directors influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski.

Production History

Initial performances occurred for court audiences under the patronage of Louis XIV and in private salons, with disputes leading to bans and revisions before public staging at venues such as the Palais-Royal and later the Comédie-Française. The play’s staging history traverses European capitals—London, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Berlin—and colonial metropoles where troupes performed translations and adaptations influenced by local censorship by ecclesiastical authorities and civic magistrates. Notable productions and revivals involved directors and actors associated with institutions like the Comédie-Française, Royal Shakespeare Company, Théâtre de l'Odéon, and émigré companies in the 19th and 20th centuries, with musical and design collaborations recalling work by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Serge Lifar, and modern scenographers.

Reception and Censorship

Contemporary reception was polarized: supporters among courtiers and some literati praised its wit, while opponents including prominent clerics, members of the Parlement, and conservative pamphleteers condemned its portrayal of piety, resulting in prohibitions and mandated revisions. Debates engaged public intellectuals like Boileau, correspondents in the salons of Madame de Sévigné, and pamphleteers in the press ecosystem of Paris and other capitals. The controversy contributed to evolving norms of theatrical censorship and royal patronage mechanisms, intersecting with legal precedents set by the Parlement of Paris and royal decrees, and presaging later Enlightenment critiques leveled by thinkers such as Voltaire and Diderot.

Category:Plays by Molière