Moliere possessed extraordinary activity, writing, producing and playing more than 20 works of varying length and unequal value. The most important were
Moliere s theatre is a world in itself. Al though his output is smaller than that of Shakespeare, he introduces us to all classes of society: nobility, the masses, country yokels, people of all ages and conditions. And all are handled with consummate skill. A Jourdain, a Tartufe or a Celimene are types that are im perishable. What then was Moliere's secret? Quite a simple one, consisting merely in ((paint ing after Nature.° And painting what? "The people of his day? Action and plot count for little. He devoted himself primarily to life and character. In the portrayal of his charac ters, Moliere followed the psychological style of Corneille and Racine, and in portraying life or customs, while retaining the scene and satire of his epoch, he showed a predilection the social side of life. Moliere was gifted with a remarkable talent for observation, which earned for him from his contemporaries the nickname of "the Contemplator? The ridiculous, the ec centric or the vicious, nothing escaped him. His characters are life-like because they have been drawn from actual life. Who has not met his Tartufe: "Gros et Bras, le teitit frais et la bombe vermeille* ("Big and fat, fresh complexion and red mouthp), or the good-na tured and easy-going Chrysale who: eAime fort le repos, la paix et la douceurn to say nothing of Jourdain, suffering from that mania for wild extravagance folie des gran deurs°) ; or Argan, the imaginary invalid but in reality as strong as a bull and who is doomed to die from an apoplectic fit; Toinette, the shrewd, loud-spoken domestic servant. These can scarcely be called caricatures, Moliere sim ply exaggerated in a slight degree certain traits to suit theatrical limelight. His characters are always actual life-studies depicted from per sonal observation.
After all, comedy is merely a cloak to mask the seamy side of human nature. All these comedies are in reality dramas. It is life, and life is sad and hard for the virtuous, while fac ile for the unscrupulous. Take Tartufe, a re ligious hypocrite pretending to be righteous, who divides and upsets a happy and respectable family; or Alceste, the very type of honor and loyalty, who is deceived by his friends and be trayed by his mistress. Again, Harpagon, the
avaricious father of a prodigal son and a frivo lous daughter who forsakes him. A Trissotin, of intellectual disposition in quest of a large marriage portion, dangling before the eyes of the narrow-minded mother his social status and profiting by the moral cowardice of the father, to marry a charming girl only to make her the most unhappy of women. If, to respect tradi tions and in order not to trick the spectators, Moliere had furnished his pieces with their logical denouement, they would all have had an unhappy ending; honest folk would have been ruined by clever rogues, households di vided and every home in misery. Musset right ly summed up Moliere's style in the following words.
" Cette mile gaiety si triate et si profonde Qua lorsqu'on vient ‘1*en rire on en devrait player." C' This maid. y gaiety. so sad and so deep, That one laughs at it, one must weep").
And yet despite all this, Moliire remained optimistic, and if he made war on all these abuses, eccentricities and vices it was because he honestly believed it was possible to remedy them. He desired to bring man back to na ture and common sense.
In those two expressions, nature and com mon sense, we have the whole of Moliere's character, and in his way of thinking one was the logical sequence of the other. To follow one's common sense was to refrain from affec tation, or, in other words, effect a return to sim pie nature. Right-minded people, according to Moliere, were those who waged war on affec tation in the name of nature and common sense. This is embodied in Alceste when he reproaches certain epigrammatic thoughts and insipidities in Orente's sonnet, for ace nest point ainsi que parle la nature ("Nature does not speak that wayx'). We also see it embodied in Clitandre the honest° so frank in his manner, so care ful in passing a judgment exposing the pedan tic nonsense of a Trissotin. It is even shown in Chrysale, thick-skulled as he was, when he is made to say: On vit de bonne soupe et non de beau langage ("One lives on good soup, not fine language). It is brought out by the charming Henriette, that living type of the young and real Frenchwoman, formulating in three words her sound and simple ideal: "Un marl, des enfants, tin ménage.° ("A hus band, children, and a home). It is even better defined by Martine, a clear-sighted daughter of the people, who says in her rough language: Qui park tout droit comme on parle cheux nous° ("Who talks quite correctly as we speak at home). "Cheux nous° represents France as it is, the real land of the Gauls, the good old Paris of Henry IV, and the old-fashioned prov inces, lacking perhaps a certain elegance but none the less replete with the good things of life. Moliere is a part of "cheux nous° and therein lies his true force. Over and above everything Moliere is French, his genius is the genius of France.