Annals of the French Stage, to the Death of Racine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1884 Excerpt: ... interest in the fortunes of the young dramatist without seeking for a moment to palliate his conduct towards Moliere, and who, as became a critic, spoke of Corneille's writings as he found them. Moliere's new comedy, Le Misanthrope, a striking picture of contemporary Parisian life, but pregnant with universal truth, was at length produced (June 4). For many reasons it must have taken the audience by surprise. The misanthrope, Alceste, impersonated by the author himself, was a character wholly new to the stage, and, unlike the central figures in other plays from the same pen, is intended to enjoy at least our respect, and even a certain measure of sympathy. He is no vulgar hater of mankind, no churlish or brutal cynic. High and noble in nature, he is alienated from the world by its want of heart, its insincerities, its more or less veiled falsehood, its hypocrisies of complaisance, its thousand petty foibles. He regards it as nothing less than a crime that men should exchange civilities simply as a matter of form, should breathe a syllable against those whom they call their friends, or should gloss over their opinion of execrable verses when the author asks for it. His practice is at least equal to his theory; and at the end of the second act, when he is taken off to the Marechaux to account for his denunciation of the last sonnet by Oronte (Ducroisy) he uses the words with which Boileau had replied to the question as to Chapelain--Hors qu'un commandement exprta du roi me vienne De trouver bons les vers dont on se met en peine, Je soutiendrai toujours, morbleu qu'ils sont mauvais, Et qu'un homme est pendable apres les avoir faits. His contempt for the harmless hypocrisies of every-day life, however, does not prevent him from becoming the slave of a woman in...