Molière. La survivance d’un génie. Le Tartuffe: la morale de l’époque et la pratique du théâtre

Abstract

This article assesses Molière’s strategies to triumph and survive as a playwright, comic genius, favored and then disgraced by the King. My point of view is that Molière not only exercised his comic genius, but that he contributed to two revolutions in the seventeenth century: in the moral order of the time and in the theatrical practice. If these have been the subject of in-depth analyses over time, what has been less analyzed is that Molière uses comic theater not only to revolutionize comic form, but also to argue with his opponents, again using theatrical means. And he does it like a genius navigator on rough seas who knows how to survive in extremely difficult conditions. Hypocrisy and imposture are the human substance, the material from which Molière constructed the mask of a character that crosses the centuries. Between the morals of his time and theatrical practices, there is still room for reflection.