Molière Jugé par Stendhal (Classic Reprint)

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Thirteen years as an itinerant actor helped him polish his comedic abilities while he began writing, combining Commedia dell'arte elements with the more refined French comedy. The great movement of Russian realism in the second half of the nineteenth century owes an immense debt to Stendhal, as do the French realist novelists Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, and Emile Zola, who would emerge in Stendhal's wake. As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (that same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of the nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.

At the time Stendhal wrote The Red and the Black, the prose in novels included dialogue or omniscient descriptions, but Stendhal's great contribution was to move the narration inside the characters' heads, describing their feelings and emotions, through the use of techniques like interior monologue. In 1799, the teenage Stendhal got his wish, traveling to Paris, ostensibly to pursue an academic career in mathematics. He crossed the Berezina River by finding a usable ford rather than the overwhelmed pontoon bridge, which probably saved his life and those of his companions.

The work elaborates the prevailing romantic view in esthetics that proclaimed the relativism of beauty. These sudden jolts experienced by the characters as they discover themselves and Stendhal's rapid narration create an air of tension that intrigues the reader. In 1672, Madeleine Béjart died, and Molière suffered from this loss and from the worsening of his own illness. He became acquainted with a number of literary and artistic circles in the cosmopolitan city, and found himself quickly employed writing books on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Metastasio, and Italian painting. His family was part of the bourgeois class of the Ancien Regime, which explains his ambiguous attitude toward Napoleon, the Bourbon Restoration, and the monarchy lateron.

Modern medicine has shown that his health problems were more attributable to his treatment than to his syphilis.

Thirsting for adventure, he went to Paris, and securing a commission in the army, sojourned briefly in Italy, a country he came to love above France.

Known as Jean-Baptiste, he was the first son of Jean Poquelin and Marie Cressé, who had married on 27 April 1621. The 2007 French film Molière was more loosely based on the life of Molière, starring Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini and Ludivine Sagnier. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of The Charterhouse of Parma is its highly sophisticated psychology. Of a fiery and rebellious nature, Stendhal declared himself early to be an atheist and "jacobin," or liberal — an expression of revolt, no doubt, against his father.It was a great success, and it led to his last work (see below), which is still held in high esteem. The most noteworthy are L'Étourdi ou les Contretemps (The Bungler) and Le Docteur Amoureux (The Doctor in Love); with these two plays, Molière moved away from the heavy influence of the Italian improvisational Commedia dell'arte, and displayed his talent for mockery.