Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Research Articles

Lost in translation? Tracing Lullian tunes in Edward Ravenscroft’s The Citizen Turn’d Gentleman (1672)

Abstract In late 17th- and early 18th-century London, English versions of the comédies-ballets by Molière and Lully were received with great applause. Yet translators had necessarily converted the rhythm, rhyme and song of the French plays, which is why most of Lully’s tunes seem to have been lost in translation, replaced by newly composed songs. Focusing on Edward Ravenscroft’s The Citizen Turn’d Gentleman (1672), this article examines source evidence suggesting that in this case some of Lully’s vocal and instrumental movements may well have survived crossing the Channel—and it also reveals that Ravenscroft must have been able to draw on eyewitness accounts of Lully as an on-stage performer in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670). An Appendix briefly considers 18th-century revivals of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and its ‘Turkish Ceremony’ in London.

Lire-enseigner Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme de Molière en classe de français au secondaire marocain : une œuvre classique devant des élèves-lecteurs adolescents

"Reading-teaching Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in Moroccan Secondary School French Classes: a Classic Work for Teenage Student-readers. In this article, we have undertaken an in-depth study of the reading of classical texts, highlighting their current state. To this end, we examined the theoretical underpinnings of the teaching of these classical works in Morocco, seeking to understand how they are transmitted to students. We adopted a concrete approach, using the method of direct classroom observation to analyze the specific difficulties encountered when teaching a classical work to adolescent student-readers. In addition, we looked at the impact of Molière’s work on students’ ethical representations, seeking to determine how classical literature can influence their perception of the world and moral values. Finally, to encourage the development of students’ written production skills, we shared a practical experience using the pastiche of the exposition scene from Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. This comprehensive research aims to enrich our understanding of the importance of classical texts in contemporary education and proposes innovative pedagogical approaches to stimulate students’ interest and engagement with these iconic literary works. Keywords: writing production skills, student-reader, adolescent-reader, classical work, classical text, Molière’s writing."

Du théâtre au cinéma : Molière dans la campagne vaudoise

"From Theatre to Cinema: Molière in the canton of Vaud Countryside. Rediscovered on the occasion of a retrospective on Molière in films at the Cinémathèque suisse (Lausanne) in 2022, the movie Monsieur Molière aux champs looks at the theatrical practices of a farming community in the canton of Vaud countryside. Directed by Swiss photographer and journalist Yvan Dalain in 1988-1989, the movie depicts the real lives of the inhabitants of Orzens, Gossens and Opens, drawing links with Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, a comedy-ballet by Molière and Lully, almost 320 years after its creation. This paper looks back at the origins of this ambitious project, analyzing the format and adaptation processes used on stage and screen. Keywords: Swiss movie, adaptation, Bourgeois gentilhomme, comedy-ballet, Molière."

Transforming Attitudes Towards the Turk in Edward Ravenscroft’s Mamamouchi, or The citizen turn’d gentleman (1672) and Molière’s Le bourgeois Gentilhomme (1668)

When Edward Ravenscroft approached the polarising figure of the Turk in The citizen turn’d gentleman (1672), an adaptation of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme (1668), he inherited certain structures and motivations that stem out of very specific attitudes towards the Ottomans that were not easily transposed onto the English context. This did not stop him from penning one of the most successful plays of his time, but it also did not stop the critics from deeming his adaptation a cheap knock-off that hardly altered the original and was closer to a translation than to any exercise of real talent. His adaptation, however, builds on the expectations of his London audiences and the trends on narrative-building regarding East–West relations to cleverly alter the reception of the play rather than the execution thereof, resulting in a minimal style of adaptation that produced a profound outcome. This study explores Ravenscroft’s way of dealing with the very central figure of the Turk in The citizen turn’d gentleman and the relation to the original source material in order to prove that his decision was a conscious act, part of a much more complex adaptative procedure than he is given credit for.

Le Misanthrope by Molière, and: Le Malade Imaginaire by Molière, and: Le Tartuffe ou L’hypocrite by Molière, and: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Molière, and: L’avare by Molière (review)

Reviewed by: Le Misanthrope by Molière, and: Le Malade Imaginaire by Molière, and: Le Tartuffe ou L’hypocrite by Molière, and: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Molière, and: L’avare by Molière Nancy C. Jones LE MISANTHROPE. By Molière. Directed by Clément Hervieu-Léger. Comédie-Française, Paris. March 12, 2022. LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE. By Molière. Directed by Claude Stratz. Comédie-Française, Paris. March 14, 2022. LE TARTUFFE OU L’HYPOCRITE. By Molière. Directed by Ivo van Hove. Comédie-Française at Epidaurus Festival, Athens. June 18, 2022. LE BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME. By Molière. Directed by Valérie Lesort and Christian Hecq. Comédie-Française, Paris. June 23, 2022. L’AVARE. By Molière. Directed by Lilo Baur. Comédie-Française, Paris. June 25, 2022. LES FOURBERRIES DE SCAPIN. By Molière. Directed by Denis Podalydès. Comédie-Française, Paris. June 26, 2022. The Comédie-Française celebrated Molière’s 400th birthday in 2022 with a season devoted solely to his plays. Acquiring a “Carte Molière” allowed for early purchase of tickets to the Ivo van Hove Tartuffe and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme starring Christian Hecq, which both sold out within minutes of their public offering. I attended those and four other Molière classics between March and June 2022 during this extraordinary theatrical event. A year of classic comedy and a roomful of laughter was the ideal theatrical medicine: a perfectly timed and vital response to the incessant tragedies and hardships of the world today. The Comédie-Française sits on Paris’s rive droite just steps from the Musée du Louvre. One enters via the Place Colette through a foyer with a marble statue of Molière bearing witness. The main floor lobby houses a glass enclosed leather chair: the infamous set piece from Le Malade Imaginaire that Molière performed in before his tragic death. This theatrical relic sits in a place of honor, paying hauntological homage to the great playwright whose spirit inhabits the institution. Le Misanthrope, a play that Molière wrote while licking his artistic wounds in 1664 after Tartuffe was banned, reveals his struggles with depression and frustration amid the repressive and hypocritical atmosphere of court society. Eric Ruf designed the mise en scène for the 2022 Misanthrope as an expansive yet run down courtyard of a Hôtel Particulier undergoing renovation. As the curtain rose on this world in flux, a flurry of activity brought the stage to life: a maid entered to raise the elaborate glass chandelier; muslin-covered chairs littering the stage were arranged in new configurations; enormous, shuttered windows were opened; an upright piano tucked against the wall was partially uncovered. Each visual choice was a palimpsestic marriage of old and new. Caroline de Vivaise’s contemporary costumes echoed the somber palette, with men in perfectly tailored suits, juxtaposed with the bright red jewel tone of Célèmine’s exquisitely cut dress and heels. This visual blend of the past with the present is a trademark of the Comédie-Française and highlights their commitment to giving new life to canonical texts. The acting in The Misanthrope had power, resonance, and assurance. Loïc Corbery’s passionate and dejected Alceste at one point played a soulful tune on the abandoned piano, reflecting his brooding attempt to modify an imperfect society through his relentless honesty. Adeline d’Hermy as Célèmine juggled the weight of multiple suitors’ attention and Molière’s criticism of social pretense with feline allure and polished refinement. Director Clément Hervieu-Léger (who also played Acaste, the egotistical, velvet-clad marquis, as Molière himself did) created striking tableaux that used the totality of the massive stage, simultaneously elaborating on a society trapped by the hypocrisy of its social [End Page 104] rules and conventions. There is no happy marriage at the end of this play as Alceste is abandoned by Célèmine and seeks “un edroit écarté” where he can be a man of honor. The production ended with each character slowly exiting the stage in...

Каков язык французской музыкальной комедии? Стилевые эксперименты тандема Легран — Деми

The article is devoted to analysing the stylistic dialogue in the music of Michel Legrand to three films by Jacques Demy: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and Donkeyskin (1971) created in the genre of “comédie musicale” (musical comedy, musical). In the first part of the article the author examines the French sources of the American musical (from the comedy-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere and Lully to the operettas by Jacques Offenbach), which allow us to comprehend the deep connection of the genre with the European art of the past and to understand the naturalness of the appeal to the idea of the musical by Demy and Legrand. The second part is an introduction to Jacques Demy’s creative method which is characterized by ambivalence, constant balancing between the auteur and mass cinema, between a realistic approach and theatricality. The third part is devoted to studying the origins of Michel Legrand’s stylistic experiments (on the one hand — serious academic education, training with Nadia Boulanger; on the other— work with world-class jazz musicians), as well as to analysing three layers: jazz (improvisation, the nature of arrangements and harmonies on the example of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), romantic (the application of the features of the genre of piano concerto in The Young Girls of Rochefort) and baroque (the use of the principles of orchestration, polyphonic forms, rhetorical figures in the Donkeyskin). The author concludes that Legrand and Demy, along with Bernstein and Sondheim, Webber and Rice, marked with their creativity the overcoming of the musical genre crisis of 1940–1950s associated with a shortage of meaningful librettos, lower quality of vocal-symphonic material, and a shift to entertainment and visual appeal to the detriment of musical dramaturgy. Despite the immutability of the basis of a musical, the director and composer expanded understanding of the genre and gave it an elegant French accent.

Hanna Walsdorf (ed.), Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Revisiting the Turkish Ceremony in ‘Le Bourgeois gentilhomme’ (1670)

Hanna Walsdorf (ed.), <i>Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Revisiting the Turkish Ceremony in ‘Le Bourgeois gentilhomme’ (1670)</i>

Babel in Russian and Other Literatures and Topographies: The Tower, the State, and the Chaos of Language. Martin Meisel. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. Pp. xx+148.

<i>Babel in Russian and Other Literatures and Topographies: The Tower, the State, and the Chaos of Language</i>. Martin Meisel. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. Pp. xx+148.

LE BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME В РОМАНЕ Л. Н. ТОЛСТОГО «ВОЙНА И МИР»

L. N. Tolstoy does not make any direct statements about the great French Revolution, although a probe into the writer’s attitude to this historical event allows us to understand his interpretation of phenomena contemporary to him. In this sense, the analysis of the early drafts of the novel War and Peace (1864) conducted in this article is of great interest. In these drafts, French politicians of the Directory period are called ‘rich upstarts’ and ‘yesterday’s bourgeois gentilhommes.’ Bonaparte himself is referred to as “a clever, cunning and evil successful bourgeois.” And in the outline of the preface to the novel Tolstoy repeats this comparison again: “funny and disgusting, like a Philistine in the nobility.” All of these formulas date back to the famous comedy by J. B. Moliere Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670). Although Napoleon Bonaparte was not a bourgeois by birth, his origins in the provincial Corsica led to a mention of him as a “bourgeois nobleman,” or parvenu in the drafts of War and Peace. This expression had a negative connotation due to the hereditary pride and prejudice of the aristocrat Tolstoy against the lower classes and his reaction to the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? (1863). In the final text of War and Peace, influenced by the news of the civil execution and exile of Chernyshevsky, Tolstoy removed these direct characteristics, although the overall negative assessment of Napoleon remained. Later Tolstoy repeatedly used images of this comedy, but did not attach negative connotations to them. Establishing the connection between the image of Napoleon and the “bourgeois gentilhommes” in the drafts for Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace allows us to more accurately determine the writer’s political views in the mid-1860s.

The true “punching bag” behind Molière’s The Middle-Class Nobleman

Summary In 1670, the new ballet comedy The middle-class gentleman (Le bourgeoisgentilhomme) premiered at the theatre of the French palace before “theSun King” Louis XIV, on a text by Molière with music by Lully, hispermanent collaborator. Both were acting on stage. Since then, no one hasraised the question who is the real punching bag of the play’s aggression.The present author decided to research towards understanding it, in orderto compose new music responsibly for a performance at the MunicipalRegional Theatre of Crete, an island paradoxically connected directly withthe initial impetus behind the play’s composition. By studying historicalsources, events, linking the circumstances and analyzing in depth the textfrom a fresh viewpoint with emphasis on certain scenes, he concludedthat the target of the playwright’s merciless hard satire was the originalcomposer of the music for the play, because the two of them had entereda period of deep clash for personal, financial and legal differences. Theresearch, with its conclusions regarding the Molièresque attack on Lully,moves on the axes of his humble Italian origins, his greed, the forgery ofhis family history through the construction of a fake past of nobility, as wellas his widely conspicuous effeminacy and open homosexuality, by probinginto detailed historical, linguistic, etymological, political and sociologicalreferences. The compound historical study of events that took place in thepalace and motivated the writing of this play is combined with a socialstudy of the palatine conditions and habits, with juicy references to thecustoms and etiquette of the wider royal family and the Court, enhancedwith anecdotal facts and spicy commentary. The general attempt of thisnovel multifaceted theatrological viewing is the documentation througha narrative rich in authentic facts about the play, the author, the associatecreators and the era, largely unknown to the general public.

Le bourgeois versifié (Le bourgeois gentilhomme au plus près de Molière) par Jacques Jouet

his family, and after returning to Paris with a lead on an apartment and a job due to Victor’s help, Jeremy becomes embroiled in an assassination having to do with a snake, a postcard of a Renaissance painting, a colleague, and of course, music. Once again, the reader is bedazzled by the language, the references, the sights, smells, and sounds of 1920s Paris jazz scene.When the music hall murders start accumulating, Jeremy finds himself in the thick of it:“SimonettaVespucci...arrêt cardiaque [...] dépouille de serpent! Deux fois de suite, ce n’était plus un malheureux hasard, c’était une préméditation” (70). Old friends, jazz clubs, the new cinema are introduced so that the reader has a rounded knowledge of the time, place, and ambiance of the arts. Everything points to “La Tour de Babel,” a Pigalle music hall where all the victims were employed. Could Renaud Lemerle, the theater’s director, be involved? Could it be one of the performers or someone else at the theater? Could the motive be revenge, jealousy or unrequited love? Why the Renaissance painting with its serpent around Simonetta’s neck? Why postcards of the tableau and snakes present at each cadaver? Poor Jeremy! Besides desirous of a true musical career, he pursues his connections to P.K., the father he never knew, and frankly, the series of murders has become a time-consuming distraction . The characters he meets are many. The list of suspects grows, but complications continue to arise as Jeremy meets more and more people able to bring him closer and closer to his origins. Suffice it to say, Jeremy will be reunited with some of his family, but the killings to this point remain unsolved, and there are many red herrings. Throughout this ordeal, Jeremy crosses paths with extraordinary personalities such as Tristan Tzara and Fujita. Happy about finding information on his past, he is about to abandon the research into the music hall deaths, when he himself is brutally attacked and warned not to continue their pursuit. Jeremy is as good a detective as a pianist, it seems. His senses in full alert serve him well. There is a dose of humor, a pinch of ethnic and linguistic references, and always the Izner touch: beautifully detailed, animated scenes where character and theme count.Accolades for our amateur sleuth, the use of argot, the authenticity of the material. This reader cannot wait for volume three. Alliance Française, Santa Rosa (CA) Davida Brautman Jouet, Jacques. Le bourgeois versifié (Le bourgeois gentilhomme au plus près de Molière). Paris: P.O.L, 2017. ISBN 978-2-8180-4224-3. Pp. 208. One of the most comedic scenes from Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme occurs when Monsieur Jourdain learns the difference between prose and verse, understanding for the first time that his common conversation is prose and that which is not prose is verse and vice versa. Of course, Molière wrote this play in prose, but imagine if he had written it in verse. This re-imagination of the classic comédie-ballet comes from Jacques Jouet, a long-time member of Oulipo. Jouet began this project by translating 210 FRENCH REVIEW 91.4 Reviews 211 the end of Act II, Scene 4 of the original play because he was intrigued by the difficulty and formality of writing in verse. This attempt developed into the desire to translate the play in its entirety (201). The length of time between presentation of the first extract and publication of the complete play (from 2002 to 2017) is a testament to the challenges of writing in, or translating to, verse. Just as Molière used in some of his other works of theater, Jouet engages the alexandrine to complete Le bourgeois versifié, believing it“un vers actif, aujourd’hui, parmi d’autres, et non des moindres, aussi vrai que la ‘cadence nationale’, comme dit Mallarmé, est dans la mémoire de la langue française, à mon avis inarrachable” (202). Though, rather than be fixed in the past, Jouet’s alexandrines reflect the influence of their nineteenth- and twentieth-century iterations. This manipulation works to underscore Monsieur Jourdain...

“Beginning of the Murmur”: Archival Pre-Texts and Other Sources ed. by Conor Carville, Mark Nixon

and owner of his works. Here Call situates the battles with pirates and plagiarists in the complex context of seventeenth-century publishing practices, resisting the anachronistic temptation to see Molière as a precursor to modern authorship. Quarrels, and especially those surrounding L’école des femmes, provide the basis for the third chapter, which shows why the 1662 comedy posed a serious threat to its contemporaries by combining popular success with the generic innovation of a new “grande comédie” that only Molière could create:“Molière redefined the very nature of successful comedy on the dual fronts of performance and publication, establishing in the process a trademark style which was branded with his individuating ownership” (140). The fourth chapter looks in depth at the year 1666, during which a collection of Molière’s works was published without his consent; meanwhile, Le misanthrope staged the drama of Célimène’s promiscuously circulating letters, which served as an example of the dangers of authorship: both the action of the comedy and the publication history of the year of its premiere show how easily texts can escape their authors. The following chapter tracks the publishing history of the late 1660s and early 1670s.With Le Tartuffe and Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Molière continued to establish himself as author and owner of plays that made money both onstage and in print.A privilege that he was able to obtain in 1671, against the wishes of the Communauté des libraires et imprimeurs, marks a newly-aggressive approach to authorial control, such that “Molière had gone from being an author printed malgré lui to wresting almost complete control of his works from a system designed without an author’s rights in mind” (205). Call argues that the 1672 publication of Les femmes savantes marks the culmination of Molière’s innovation and independence in the world of print. The last chapter explores the fascinating case of Psyché, the result of collaborative writing by Molière, Corneille, and Quinault, staged to the music of Lully, the choreography of Beauchamp, and the machines of the Vigarani family. In spite of playing a relatively minor role in the machine play’s authorship, Molière nonetheless strove to be recognized as its sole author. An afterword examines the 1682 edition of Molière’s complete works, “a remarkably complex effort by the playwright’s contemporaries to reconcile the many competing aspects of Molière’s authorship” (230). University of Iowa Roland Racevskis Carville, Conor, and Mark Nixon, eds. “Beginning of the Murmur”: Archival PreTexts and Other Sources. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2015. ISBN 978-90-043-0991-3. Pp. 244. While many of the past few years’ editions of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui have demonstrated the rich variety of contemporary critical approaches to Beckett’s work, the newest edition makes this diversity of ways of engaging Beckett’s lasting achievement its guiding statement of purpose. Largely comprised of essays developed 218 FRENCH REVIEW 91.1 Reviews 219 from a conference held to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading, the volume stands as a testament to, as Conor Carville writes in his introduction, the fact that no one interpretive method or critical school holds the key to unlocking the meanings of Beckett’s work, but that “today there is instead a sense of several very productive strands of research coexisting with and complementing each other” (9). This proliferation of approaches in today’s scholarly community, Carville elegantly argues, is perfectly suited to Beckett’s art, as that art itself emerged from a modernist strand of “experimental cultural practice”(10).Which is to say that Beckett’s art asks a multitude of questions about the world from a variety of perspectives, and today’s brightest and most challenging readers of Beckett’s work continue to follow suit. The present volume’s own proliferation of critical approaches includes, among essays that are unanimously compelling and successful, queer theory, trauma studies, and translation studies (to name only a few), all performed with the most rigorous and exacting kind of close reading. Notable standouts include analyses of Beckett’s literary practice within...

“Mon cher ami”: Friendship in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

Molière’s ideological position in regard to the nobility and bourgeoisie of his era is a hotly contested subject. This article contributes to this ongoing debate by offering a reading of friendship in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. In particular, it analyses the relationship between the bourgeois protagonist, Monsieur Jourdain, and the count Dorante. It seeks to understand this relationship in terms of friendship by referring to the influential philosophical construction of friendship proposed by Cicero in Laelius de amicitia. It argues that both characters fall short of the conditions required for such a friendship, leaving them equally open to criticism. While there appears to be weightier judgment reserved for Dorante’s conduct, this is problematized by considering the cultural phenomenon of honnêteté in seventeenth-century France, which complicates the Ciceronian conception of friendship. The analysis suggests the need for a wider reading of Molière’s works to further explore this socio-cultural tension.

French chamber music

In promoting his cherished réunion des goûts, François Couperin never sought to denigrate the native French musical tradition but rather to enrich it with elements imported from Italy in an attempt to achieve ‘the perfection of music’. The present batch of recordings, consisting mainly of chamber music composed between the 1690s and the 1740s, illustrates the varying degree to which French composers of the period came to terms with Italian styles and techniques or, in some cases, ignored them completely. Elements of the two national traditions are nicely juxtaposed on a disc entitled Italy versus France: Lully, Corelli, d’Anglebert, Rebel, Muffat, Couperin (Hyphen Press Music hpm004, rec 2010, 79′), part of an enterprising series in which The Bach Players approach French music from various different perspectives. At one extreme in the present programme is a group of items representing the unalloyed style français—the overture and chaconne from Lully’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, together with two theorbo pieces by Robert de Visée and d’Anglebert’s Tombeau de M. Chambonnières, a tribute to the founder of the French clavecin school. At the other is Corelli’s trio sonata on the ciaccona, op.12 no.12, plus a keyboard toccata by Pasquini and the G minor sonata from Georg Muffat’s homage to Corelli, Armonico tributo. Between these are two further works in that archetypal French genre, the tombeau, which nevertheless adopt the medium of the Italian trio sonata: Jean-Féry Rebel’s Tombeau de M. de Lully and Couperin’s Le Parnasse, ou L’Apothéose de Corelli. This imaginative programming creates an anthology which amounts to far more than the sum of its parts. All the music is first rate, and The Bach Players, directed by Nicolette Moonen, do it full justice, whether in Muffat’s sublime contrapuntal edifices, or in the dignified but poignant tombeaux by d’Anglebert and Rebel, or in Couperin’s evocation of Corelli’s ‘enthousiasme’. Uplifting and hugely enjoyable.

Aide à la rédaction: recueil des fautes les plus fréquentes enfrançais écrit par Louise Tellier, Benoît Leblanc

Reviews 285 are not sure where to begin, delving into Mooney’s collection of 160 monologues taken from seventeen of Molière’s comedies is a surefire way to be quickly introduced to the playwright’s comedic style and to appreciate the wealth of his work. Mooney’s subtle translation captures the spirit of Molière and allows twenty-first-century students to understand his humor and irony. This book could be integrated at the high school level, as an introduction to French history and culture, or into acting courses. The five-page biography of Molière, from the early to the golden years, will be useful to students learning about seventeenth-century French society and politics in order to understand how the playwright mocked particular features of his contemporaries. With Mooney’s clever explanations, which introduce each play, readers will recognize Molière’s motivations and familiarize themselves with the characters, the plot, and his comic genius. Each monologue is preceded by a short description of the character, as well as the circumstances that led him or her to deliver the long oration. Mooney’s book features five monologues from Les précieuses ridicules, two from Le médecin volant, ten from L’école des maris, thirteen from L’école des femmes, seven from La critique de l’école des femmes, sixteen from Tartuffe, eighteen from Dom Juan, five from Le docteur amoureux, eight from Le médecin malgré lui, twenty from Le misanthrope, nine from L’avare, seven from Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, ten from Le bourgeois gentilhomme, seven from Les fourberies de Scapin, eleven from Les femmes savantes, and ten from Le malade imaginaire. All in all, Mooney’s book is an entertaining way to learn about classical theater and about the work of the most celebrated French playwright. While there is no substitute for reading an entire play in order to fully understand the characters, this collection of classic as well as less famous lines will be a valuable addition to any high school curriculum. It should be noted, however, that despite the quality of Mooney’s translation and the variety of passages and comic styles he presents, his book unfortunately does not feature the original French versions of the monologues written by Molière. Purdue University Calumet Florian Vauléon Tellier, Louise, et Benoît Leblanc. Aide à la rédaction: recueil des fautes les plus fréquentes en français écrit. Trois-Rivières: SMG, 2013. ISBN 978-2-89094-290-5. Pp. 170. $30 Can. Comprised of six sections (Approche méthodologique; Ouvrages de référence; Dictionnaire—Nos fautes et nos très grandes fautes; Exercices; Corrigé des exercices; Annexe—Consignes du sondage) plus a bibliography and index of words and expressions , this guide reflects the authors’ efforts at compiling, via a survey sent to professionals who edit and revise texts, the most frequent errors in written French. Tellier and Leblanc explain what happened when sorting through the survey feedback: “Ainsi, s’est dégagée une liste de problèmes de vocabulaire (anglicismes, archaïsmes, barbarismes, etc.), de grammaire et de ponctuation auxquels nous avons proposé des formes correctes assorties, au besoin, de notes explicatives” (1). As opposed to other French stylistic guides, information provided on common errors is not done in alphabetical order but in order of frequency of the errors, according to the survey conducted with the writing specialists. So that in the section“Dictionnaire,”the most common error—the confusion between “ballade (poème)” and “balade (promenade sans but précis)”(17)—is the first entry; while the contrast of “plus tôt [plus de bonne heure (s’oppose à plus tard)]”and“plutôt (de préférence)”(94) is the last one. It is also in this section that the authors give a concise explanation for each of the 500 identified errors and its correct usage. For example, #244: “Jules est *excessivement gentil/Jules est extrêmement gentil. L’adverbe excessivement s’emploie exclusivement avec des adjectifs à dénotation négative. Ex. René est excessivement hargneux quand il perd au billard”(59). Not to be overlooked are the eleven exercises.While the first three are the standard ones that...

The Specter of the Turk in Early Modern French Court Entertainments

This essay demonstrates key differences between dramatic impersonations and purely verbal evocations of the Turk in early modern French court entertainment. Although both kinds of representation drew on stereotypical imagery, they performed different cultural work. Exotic performances of Turkishness could provoke admiration or laughter in the audience, but the spectral Turk conjured through poetry aroused hate and fear, creating a heightened sense of threat that often failed to correspond to French policy toward the Ottomans. Examples studied include the Bayonne Interview entertainments, Ballet de Madame , Ballet de la paix , Ballet de la nuit , Ballet de l’impatience , and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme .

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere (review)

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere (review)

Moliere, Descartes, and the Practice of Comedy in the Intermezzo

The comic intermezzo currently holds a prominent place in the historiography of eighteenth-century music. The comic music contained in these short entertainments provides evidence of a burgeoning musical style that came to dominate the opera house and the chamber in the Age of Enlightenment. But by examining these works retrospectively, musicologists have produced a distorted portrait of the genre itself, downplaying the artistic merit of the works in favour of promoting their supposed naive comic naturalism. This article examines the working methods of intermezzo librettists and composers through the example of a remarkable scene contained in Leonardo Vinci’s second intermezzo, Albino e Plautilla da pedante , produced in Naplesin 1723. This scene recreates an exchange about philosophy from Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme . While scholars have known of six intermezzo adaptations of Moliere for some time, the discovery of this scene provides new insights into the nature of the comic intermezzo. It suggests that the genre was highly literate by drawing on the works of Moliere, and highly erudite by drawing on contemporary debates about Cartesianism and the role of women in the New Philosophy.

Rue Darwin by Boualem Sansal

seriousness of learning with his whining need to go to the bathroom. Those of us in education have dealt with our own “Tonios.” However, Resch, teacher of French, history, geography and civics, is able to communicate on the level of his students. He takes passages from classics such as Racine’s Andromaque or Rostand’s Cyrano and bends the alexandrines into modern-day rap such that the Tonios, Nadirs, and others can relate better. The author presents a typical anecdote of the classroom for each month and often uses a colloquial language. Resch not only intends to record what occurs in the classroom, but he genuinely wants to prepare his “kids” for the future: “Je me sens plus radio-réveil que prof” (31). During an incident involving disarming a student with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he wishes the school would hire a “frappe-qu’un coup” (42), a person who strikes first and asks questions later! He writes with tongue-in-cheek humor, because which instructor among us has not prayed for the earth to open and swallow up the class clown or the recalcitrant provoker of incidents? Ironically the hired security guard does not last a week: “Toujours est-il qu’il s’est fait dévorer en une semaine. Taillé en pièces en quelques jours” (46). From discussions on the soccer teams PSG versus OM, to the revelation of a catastrophic afternoon in Porquerolles where Dominique’s class of boys destroys a Charlotte Gainsbourg film set while riding their bikes, the reader senses that the author is deeply connected to his class and transforms every activity into a learning adventure. Nevertheless, Dominique seems to disagree with technological progress: “Éteignons les ordinateurs. Les supports en papier me manquent. Tout comme la craie qui crie sur le tableau noir. Mon tableau blanc et mes feutres Velleda puent le sale progrès inutile. Beurk, beurk, beurk. Je n’ai pas envie d’envoyer des messages à mes élèves sur Facebook, j’ai envie de leur parler.” (69) As the year evolves, so do the anecdotes: the new teacher whose gaffe sets both students and staff laughing; the aromas of “soumassas” and “loukoums” offered by his students at the end of Ramadan, and one of the reasons that keeps Dominique at his job and not asking for a transfer; the class’s excursion to Antibes; the internship he visits where the electrical work done by the student enhances a porn show; the “mamamouchi” scene in a production of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme where the students question the mocking of the Muslim faith, and so much more. In choosing for his students the Pagnol trilogy (Marius, Fanny, César), Resch shows the intelligence and thoughtfulness of a great educator. If the reader wants to be inspired about teaching this “récit” is a must. When we teach, we often forget the classroom contains real bodies with individual problems, backgrounds , and points of view. We need to be there as advisor, friend, and listener. Resch shows his capacity to excel in all three categories. Santa Rosa Alliance Française (CA) Davida Brautman SANSAL, BOUALEM. Rue Darwin. Paris: Gallimard, 2011. ISBN 978-2-07-013460-1. Pp. 455. 17.50 a. Ce roman raconte l’histoire de Yazid, dit Yaz, un petit enfant qui ne connait pas son père, et qui a été élevé par une série de femmes, notamment sa grandm ère Djéda, dans une Algérie des années cinquante où les hommes sont des rois déchus. Djéda, alias mamie, est la chef d’une tribu, devenue maquerelle malgré 798 FRENCH REVIEW 86.4 elle. Elle habitait dans une belle maison à Bordj-Dakir, à 300 kilomètres de la capitale, où elle tenait “la grande maison”, un bordel notoire où les dignitaires locaux, Français et Arabes, allaient effeuiller les fleurs du mal. Dans cet univers de boxons, on respecte la loi du silence, du mensonge établi en axiome, des histoires fabriquées pour cacher les vérités amères. On ne parle pas beaucoup et surtout pas de certaines choses innommables: l’omerta règne sur l’honneur de la tribu! Yaz...

Physiology in respiratory medicine

Par ma foi! il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j’en susse rien… Monsieur Jourdain, Moliere, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme , Act II, Scene IV Physiological reasoning has always been essential to the practice of respiratory medicine. Yet the teaching of physiology has been on the decline in many universities. Meanwhile, advances in molecular biology, genetics and systems biology have deeply modified biomedical research with renewed demands for bedside translation. Not uncommonly now, the question is raised about the very meaning of the word “physiology”. Is it nothing more than a constant …