Molière and Plurality: Decomposition of the Classicist Self

By Larry W. Riggs

Jacques Lacan's comments on Le Misanthrope focus on the inauthenticity of any unified discourse (173-75), which is also Moli re's concern in that play, though he used different terms. Moli re does not subscribe to the myth of the classicist subject, a subject characterized by a theoretically universal - and universalizable - ability to produce and consume true, impersonal language. The ineluctability of pluralism within the individual, as well as among people and sub-cultures, is a fundamental theme of Moli resque comedy, and is particularly important in the plays studied here. The critical study of discourses which has flourished in recent criticism and theory has not only a legitimate object of study, but also a precursor and ally in Moli re.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082040912X
• ISBN13: 9780820409122
• Release Date: September 1989
• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
• Length: 275 Pages