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Recollections of Cicognini's Gelosie fortunate in Le Misanthrope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Philip A. Wadsworth
Philip A. Wadsworth*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina, Columbia
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Abstract

One of Molière's early plays, Dom Garcie de Navarre ou le prince jaloux (staged in 1661), was an adaptation of a tragicomedy by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Le Gelosie fortunate def principe Rodrigo (1654). Although Molière's work failed, it contained characters, themes, and speeches he revived in his later comedies, especially in Le Misanthrope (1666), where the fourth act contained about ninety lines from two climactic scenes in Dom Garcie de Navarre, confrontations between the jealous hero and the innocent heroine. Moliere profited, however, not only from the text of his own earlier play but also from memories of Le Gelosie fortunate, which presented a striking combination of violent emotional conflicts and frequent humorous interludes. It probably inspired some of the excesses of Alceste—his irrational suspicions and vehement language. The Italian source contributed also to the conception and configuration of characters around Alceste, particularly the affectionate and sensible relationship ofEliante and Philinte.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 5 , October 1974 , pp. 1099 - 1105
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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References

Note 1 in page 1104 Molière, Œuvres, ed. Despois and Mesnard, 13 vols, v (Paris: Hachette, 1880>, 383–94—all references to Molière are from this edition; Gustave Michaut, Les Luttes de Molière (Paris: Hachette, 1925), pp. 242–47; Henry C. Lancaster, The Period of Molière, Pt. m of A History of French Dramatic Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1929–42), pp. 654–56; René Jasinski, Molière et le Misanthrope (Paris: Colin, 1951); and H. Gaston Hall, “The Literary Context of Molière's Le Misanthrope,” Studi Frances!, No. 40 (1970), pp. 20–38. Hall's article is particularly important in showing Molière's assimilation and frequent modification of themes that were current in various types of 17th-century literature—pastoral, precious, didactic, etc.

Note 2 in page 1104 Percy A. Chapman, The Spirit of Molière (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1940), pp. 149–53; W. D. Howarth, “Dom Garcie de Navarre or Le Prince jaloux!” French Studies, 5 (1951), 140–88; Judd D. Hubert, Molière and the Comedy of Intellect (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1962), pp. 30–47; Benjamin Rountree, “Dom Garcie de Navarre: Tentative de réconciliation avec les précieux,” Romantic Review, 56 (1965), 161–70; Francis L. Lawrence, Molière: The Comedy of Unreason, Tulane Studies in Romance Language and Literature, No. 2 (New Orleans: Tulane Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 68–76; Marcel Gutwirth, “Dom Garcie de Navarre et Le Misanthrope,” PMLA, 83 (1968), 118–29.

Note 3 in page 1105 I am indebted to the Folger Shakespeare Library for a fellowship in spring 1971 for research on Molière's Italian sources.

Note 4 in page 1105 My references are based on the edition of Bologna, 1666, available at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Selected scenes from the play (Venice, 1661), about one quarter of the whole text, with brief summaries of the rest, have been provided by Moland in his edition of Molière's Œuvres complètes, iv (Paris: Gamier, 1881), 1–47.

Note 5 in page 1105 The Folger Library copy of the 1654 edition contains a written note, in a hand of the period, mentioning a performance of the play at Florence in 1659. In 1663 the Italian actors in Paris performed a scenario entitled Rodrigue ou le prince jaloux, which may have been based on Cicognini or Molière, or on both, and Luigi Riccoboni returned to the subject again in 1717 with a French version called Le Prince jaloux.

Note 6 in page 1105 Scholarship on Cicognini is summed up very well in a chapter by Ireneo Sanesi in La Commedia, 2nd ed. (Milan: Vallardi, 1954), i, 697–723. Lancaster (Pt. iii, pp. 536–37) has made some useful comments on Le Gelosie in relation to Dom Garcie de Navarre.

Note 7 in page 1105 The scene between Alceste and Célimène () also makes use of 19 or 20 lines from other sections of Dom Garcie de Navarre. For detailed references see the notes in the Despois and Mesnard edition.

Note 8 in page 1105 See Hall's article (pp. 25–26) suggesting that these lines may be a parody of tragic style, with particular reference to the letter scene in the first act of Mairet's Sophonisbe.