Moliere's Amphitryon: Myth in a Comic Perspective

Abstract

This study explains how Amphitryon underscores the absence of correspondence between man's need for coherence and the incoherence of the world which he experiences. It also strives to show that Molière is a master of the art of creating in the audience an attitude of partial detachment. Because of the personal disinvolvement encouraged by the playwright, the public willingly arrogates to itself the right to spend a few hours laughing at helpless man whose pathetic role is to struggle under the burden of a mind that cannot satisfy its demands for rationality.