Tragic elements in Moliére's comedy: a study of the play “Le Misanthrophe”

Abstract

Molieré, who abolished the classical distinction between tragedy and comedy that Aristotle had engraved in the foundations of Western theatre with the Poetics, developed writing strategies that violate the boundaries of tragedy in many of his texts. The most important feature of this approach is that Molieré's characters are people who, like the characters of tragedy, succumb to their hybris. The character of Alceste in Molieré's Misanthrope exemplifies this situation with her arrogant and intemperate behaviour, listening to no one. The second quality that Molieré reveals with Alceste is that he removes the distinction made by Aristotle between comedy and tragedy by saying that comedy "imitates people lower than the morality of the average man". Alceste is moral, as is a hero of tragedy. The third quality that Molieré has in common with the tragedians is that of the secondary characters, who act as a chorus, warning the heroes and calling them to common sense. The characters of the honnête homme/femmes, which means reserved, kind, honest, representing the ideal intellectual identity around the court of the time, in which Molieré can also be included, invite the protagonists, who are arrogant and trapped in their self-love, to reason, virtue and moderation. This study will analyse the tragic elements that come to the fore in the characters of Molieré's play Le Misanthrophe.

Keywords

• Moliére
• Le Misanthrope
• tragic elements in comedy
• Alceste
• honnête homme

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