Molière’s Strategies

Walter E. Rex (1927-2010) was a professor of French literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications included Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy (1965), Pascal’s Provincial Letters: An Introduction (1977), The Attraction of the Contrary: Essays on the Literature of the French Enlightenment (1987), Diderot’s Counterpoints: The Dynamics of Contrariety in his Major Works (1998) and the co-edited multi-volume Inventory of Diderot’s ‘Encyclopédie’ (1971-84). A talented musician, he also wrote and taught classes about eighteenth-century music and painting in relation to literature.

• Contents: George Dandin, ou le mari confondu – Literary Sources of George Dandin : La Jalousie du barbouillé – Dom Juan, ou le Festin de Pierre – Le Loup et l’Agneau by La Fontaine: Molière’s Endings – Le Misanthrope – Delaying Tactics in a Caractère by La Bruyère – Molière’s Two Funniest Scenes – Sex, Philosophy and Other Problems in Les Femmes savantes – Le Tartuffe, Act I: Conversion – Le Tartuffe, Acts II-V: Seduction – Hierarchy, Comédie-ballet, the Ballets of George Dandin – The Musical and Spoken Prologues of Le Malade imaginaire – Molière’s Titles, Vraisemblance, Surprise – Act I: Male Authority, Comic Manoeuvres, Toinette – Act II: Structure as Rite, Marriage as Medicine – Act III: Philosophical Centre and Theatrical Crisis – Troisième Intermède: Music, Dance, Medicine.