Textual Harmonies in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

Abstract

BLESSED--or cursed--with a joyously insane happy ending, Bourgeois gentilhomme seems only recently to be receiving the proper respect that is its due. As Gabriel Conesa has noted, Loin d'etre piece mineure, comme on l'a parfois pense [...]--a la lumiere de criteres aristoteliciens ou de regles peu pertinents pour estimer la poetique originale que Moliere a concue--Le Bourgeois gentilhomme est le chefd'oeuvre de la comedie-ballet. This renewed favor is certainly related to the greater interest given to the comedie-ballet in general by recent scholars (Claude Abraham, Stephen Fleck and Charles Mazouer, among others) and performers, as part of a growing recognition of the role played by the baroque in the culture of the grand siecle. Staging Bourgeois was long a matter of finding a suitable buffoon to as a topsy-turvy, would-be sun king around whom orbit artists and artisans retained by the gravitational pull of his louis d'or. Antoine Adam's discussion of Bourgeois is frequently cited as an example of both aspects of this narrow critical vision: piece est batie a la diable. Les deux premiers actes ne sont rien qu'une serie de lazzi. L'action ne commence qu'au IIIe acte (3: 383). Though he does, a bit condescendingly, allow that this may be permitted its faults since it's not a grande comedie and, with this in mind, should be counted as une des oeuvres les plus heureuses de Moliere, this is surtout [par] la vie prodigieuse de Monsieur Jourdain (3: 383-4). (1) Conversely, the parti pris of a recent historical recreation of the by Le Poeme harmonique--down to the candle-lit illumination of the stage and the adoption of historically reconstructed pronunciation--was to decenter the performance in order to illuminate the artistic proportions of the work. (2) The dramatic representation of these aesthetic dimensions forms a central dialectic--a dynamic (though not necessarily conflictual) paradigm of creative possibilities--that has always been recognized in this but which remains, in my view, meconnue. Representation of elements in this dialectic or paradigm ranges from the explicit (particularly in the first act) to the implicit (in the two famous set pieces: the Ceremonie turque and the concluding Ballet des nations). Both of these representational poles have been amply discussed in the critical literature and I will refer to these discussions in the following pages. But my primary interest is in figural representation situated between the verbal and non-verbal abstracts of pure theory and of balletic or musical expression. This intermediate realm is, to my mind, the true locus of literary creation and theatrical rhetoric: verbal figuration (in dramatic discourse and stage directions) and discourses of debate and seduction. (3) Even if we limit ourselves at the start to the most overt level of artistic representation in the play--the representation of the artists themselves --this new light on Bourgeois reveals much about the play's aesthetic perspective, as not exactly a thorough reflection on art, but at least a projection of contemporary artistic practice and attitudes. Among the critics who have attempted to draw up a balance sheet from this snapshot of classical French culture, Odette de Mourgues has said: whatever the grace and subtlety of a civilized society, its values may be questioned and are questioned more than once in the play (178). One of the most important answers she finds to this questioning can be summarized as the inauthenticityc of the practitioners of the arts and sciences [who] are made to appear in contradiction with life and common sense (179). These maitres claim to offer peace and harmony (through music), graceful coexistence (through dance), fortitude (through arms), and stoic wisdom (through philosophy)--but provide, in the end, models of avidity, pride, arrogance, and violent temper. The teachers who would make him at least an honnete homme, if not a fully realized gentilhomme, are unable to live in a peaceful social commerce, according to the creed of honnetete articulated by Mere, La Rochefoucauld, and others. …