Rivalry and the Disruption of Order in Moliere's Theater

By Michael S. Koppisch

Book Overview

In critical readings of ten of Moliere's most important plays, this book argues that a rivalry that endangers order by collapsing differences structures the works and provides a key to their understanding. Moliere's great comic characters all want desperately something that they cannot have. The objects of their desire may vary, but the presence of desire itself remains a constant. In L'Ecole des femmes. Amolphe wants, above all, to avoid cuckoldry. The title character in Dom Juan covets women. The bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain does all in his power to become a gentleman in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, and the eponymous character in George Dandin views his woes as the price of an ill-fated marriage that he had hoped would elevate him to noble rank. Le malade imaginaire, Argan, has a seemingly crazy desire to be sick. The list could go on.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0838640095
• ISBN13: 9780838640098
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.2"