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The School for Wives & The Learned Ladies (Molière Lecture) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-31 20:13:51
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2026-06
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  • Moliere Book Club Lecture IV.mp3

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Content

'You've achieved nothing if you don't get people of today to recognise themselves.'

Today we're appreciating two more works of French comic theatre by the great Molière: The School for Wives and The Learned Ladies.

We're discussing theories of humour, delusions, jealousy, over-intellectualism, academic pretension, satire, farce, comedy as truth-telling, and much more.

Timestamps:

0:00 deepening our Molière appreciation

2:00 discussing The School for Wives

3:00 Molière hits back at his opponents

5:00 The School for Wives Criticised

6:00 when caricatures & parodies endure

7:00 making people recognise themselves

8:00 Molière’s journey from farce to satire

10:00 why the satirist is a militant moralist

11:00 analysing the formula for satire

13:00 how humour is founded on convention

15:00 the relationship between farce & satire

17:00 comic writers are seeking the truth

19:00 exploring theories for why we laugh

20:00 the Superiority Theory of humour

21:00 why comedy wants to punch upwards

22:00 evolutionary theories of humour

24:00 the Incongruity Theory of humour

26:00 accessing comedy’s therapeutic power

28:00 the story of The School for Wives

29:00 satirical characters as deviations

30:00 midlife crisis & Don Quixotism

32:00 fear of cuckoldry & ideal woman

34:00 raisonneur vs deluded imagineur

35:00 those who mock will soon mock you

36:00 realms of innocence & experience

38:00 eating of the tree of knowledge

40:00 education as deprivation/omission

42:00 Arnolphe warns Agnes of evil men

44:00 jealousy, grief of loss, narcissistic wound

46:00 Arnolphe as the most awful Christian

48:00 ‘womankind is the soup of man’

50:00 discussing The Learned Ladies

52:00 tonics for over-intellectualism

53:00 on marriage as heaven or hell

55:00 the ‘joke’ of Philaminte as head

57:00 who really runs the household?

59:00 characters as personifications of ideas

1:00:00 intellect as blessing and curse

1:02:00 the grand delusions of Aunt Belise

1:04:00 today’s equivalent of over-reading

1:06:00 Martine fired for bad grammar

1:08:00 speech that communicates vs conceals

1:10:00 elitist jargon doesn’t communicate

1:11:00 how to learn complicated concepts

1:12:00 elitism in the world of education

1:14:00 reform of French orthography

1:16:00 ‘reasoning has driven reason out’

1:18:00 caricature of the character Trissotin

1:19:00 reading Molière’s vs Shakespeare

1:20:00 being the ones to create our woes

1:21:00 Molière chastises his contemporaries

1:23:00 the healing power of Molière’s comedy

1:23:00 expressing my deep gratitude for you

1:24:00 how great writers become our friends

1:25:00 advice for mood-based reading

1:26:00 building a bookshelf for mental health

1:28:00 what did you make of Molière’s plays?

Questions for You:

1) What are the main things you take away from Molière's plays?

2) Does Molière's approach to comedy appeal to your personal taste? And what makes you laugh?

3) How would you persuade another to explore Molière's plays? And will you continue to enjoy his works?

Let us know how your experience with Molière went, and any lines, passages, characters, or ideas that resonated most with you. And thank you so much for making this theatre appreciation such a special experience!

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

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Comments

Kon

Does Molière's approach to comedy appeal to your personal taste? And what makes you laugh? I found that I enjoyed The School for Wives much more than The Learned Ladies and this lecture helped me unroot the reasons why. In particular, deep diving into farce vs. satire as well Moliere's evolution from one brand of comedy to the other. I can understand much better now what makes me laugh and appeals to my comedic tastes. Thanks for a great lecture, I doubt I would have mustered the courage to read Moliere without your guidance. Btw, but I've noticed there is usually some narrative deus ex in his stories, towards the end, that wrap up each tale neatly. I wonder how people feel about these mechanisms, sometimes more apparent, sometimes less.

Jeanya

Ooooooh, I need a tonic for overintellectualism !

Jeanya

Does anyone have any tips for reading plays? Just find it so difficult.

Thomas Davidson
>>139895474

Jeanya: can you describe your difficulty you experience with reading plays? Perhaps knowing the difficulty better might allow for some specific tips for you. I know that not everyone who enjoys literature is a fan of play reading. I'm probably not a typical play reader. I've read plays all my life (and written/produced some), attend theatre regularly, and have been involved in mounting theatrical productions. That's a lot of experience with them. When I'm reading a play, I imagine how I'd direct it. I'm a very visual person, though, and for me reading a play is like watching a performance.

Maiu

I loved The Learned Ladies better than School for Wives, even if it did not make me laugh out loud. I love Molière's ability to show humans at their most absurd. At times it might feel overly much, but then you meet someone and they seem just as absurd at times, even if it translates slightly differently and I appreciate him even more. Learned Ladies is a fun take on common sense vs intelligence vs wisdom vs cleverness. I have always found interesting stories, where different aspects of thought? mind? brain? have been pitted against each other. It feels especially relevant in this age of too much information when everyone seems to consider themselves an expert with very little thought about the source of the information or taking time to really consider someone else's ideas before spreading them forward. It also gives oneself a good mirror to look into and see if there are moments where one or the other character might resonate and what that might tell us about ourselves. 1) What are the main things you take away from Molière's plays? People in general can be absurd. And maybe I can be absurd at times as well. I think I laughed most at Tartuffe and liked The Learned Ladies best. It has been really theater filled spring and it really helped with other stress and it was way better to lose myself on whatever play adaption was available on youtube than just mindless screen time. I will definitely keep my eyes on theaters around me to see one of Molière's in theater. 2) Does Molière's approach to comedy appeal to your personal taste? And what makes you laugh? Yes. I like his ability to magnify human absurdities in a way that it is impossible to miss. For rather old plays, I never had to think too hard and work too hard to get it. I have harder time with Shakespeare tragedies, but I have new love for some of his comedies and I might not have really considered to read them out of book club schedule without Molière's appeal in comedy. I've discovered I'm more into comedies than I was previously aware of and I really enjoyed Molière more than I thought I would. 3) How would you persuade another to explore Molière's plays? And will you continue to enjoy his works? I plan to read more of his plays. However, I wish someone would persuade me with theater tickets. I would really appreciate it. :D By the time I got really interested in Molière his play's tickets were already sold out for this season. Here is a question though, there are plenty different versions of Shakespeare available on Youtube, but I almost always feel like finding a decent versions of Molière's plays are harder? Is that just me?

mariah schneider

I really enjoyed reading these two plays. I read each of them in a single sitting a day apart and they both made me laugh. I think that a way to recommend them is to say that they are comedies and they are a little easier to read than the Shakespeare plays, probably because the Wilbur translations are just fantastic. At some point I will compare them with the Oxford World's Classic versions which use a different translator.

Sean

Loved all four plays. Such a great combination of funny but insightful. I’ll be reading more of his in the Wilbur series.

Hannah

For various reasons I'm a bit behind on our current reads but can't wait to finish Molière and listen to this lecture! They've been an unexpected highlight for me this year. Hope to check in soon!

Estella

I have really enjoyed reading Moliere's plays! They are really funny and also full of strong satire which provides great food for thought about humanity and one's self as well. This type of literature is always so insightful and I learn so much. The characters quite memorable as well. The lectures really add so much to the readings! In The Learned Ladies, Act 2, Scene 3, the exchange between Vadius and Trissotin is hilarious! "Go to the Greeks and Romans, and pay back the thousand things you've filched from them, you hack (Trissotin to Vadius), and, "Go to Parnassus and confess your guilt, For turning Horace into a crazy-quilt" (Vadius to Trissotin). It was so funny, however, the hypocrisy revealed in both of them is quite interesting! I'm looking forward to reading more of Moliere's work.

Clare Shepherd

I loved this read of Molière 's plays, "The Learned Ladies" being my favourite so far. I shall definitely finish reading these plays. I enjoyed Martine's scene, and Ben's comments about learning a language but not the colloquial speech of the people. At grammar school, I was criticised for using the word "bain't" and for having a Devon burr. This was in the first form, and I knew this teacher only taught the first for, so I told her that I would use dialect as long as I wanted as I didn't think my broad Devonian gradma would understand her London accent. I kept my accent and speech, and can turn on the posh if needed, but she hated me for pointing out she had a London accent she did, not East End, but still London. I went on to do well at English Grammar, and am keen on etymology. Anyone of average intelligence can speak several languages, if they work at it. It would be patronising to imply an intelligent man like Ben couldn't hold two versions of a language in his mind. I totally enjoyed this video a d reading Molière.

Donna F.

Wonderful lecture, as always. It had never occurred to me that Moliere would be so easy and fun to read! I read Tartuffe early and was so engaged that I bought the 2 volume Wilbur translation. I’m out of the loop here currently…I was ill and missed quite a bit, and trying to play catch-up jangles my nerves. I never felt comfortable in Genji’s realm, and gave up the book today. I’m on my case about that. I appreciate getting opportunities with all sorts of wonderful literature.