Reading Order
Le Misanthrope Reading Order
Le Misanthrope (1666) by Molière is the most philosophically complex and the most debated of Molière's plays — a comedy whose hero's moral position the play simultaneously validates and destroys. Alceste detests hypocrisy, flattery, and the social lies of the Versailles court with a sincerity that the play takes seriously while showing that his sincerity is itself a form of vanity — the desire to be the one honest man in a world of liars is its own kind of self-love. Célimène, the widow whom Alceste loves and whose social brilliance and wit he despises while being unable to leave, is the Versailles court in person: charming, inconstant, and completely socialized. The play does not resolve the tension between Alceste and Célimène, between moral rigor and social grace — Alceste leaves at the end for his 'désert' (desert, wilderness) to be the honest man alone, and Célimène stays in Paris. Molière played Alceste himself, which complicates the question of the play's sympathy — is Le Misanthrope a comedy satirizing a ridiculous misanthrope (the traditional French reading) or a serious examination of moral integrity in a corrupt society (the Romantic reading, especially in Rousseau's Lettre à d'Alembert)?
Where to start
Le Misanthrope is short (1800 lines of alexandrins) and can be read in two hours. Read it alongside L'École des femmes (1662) for the early Molière, and Don Juan (1665) for the darker contemporaneous play. The Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles (1758) by Rousseau is the essential 18th-century reading of Le Misanthrope as a serious moral text. Molière's other great plays — Le Tartuffe, Les Femmes savantes, L'Avare, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme — are all best read after Le Misanthrope to see the range of Molière's comic vision.
Complete Le Misanthrope Book List
- 1Buy
Le Misanthrope
Molière·1666·The complex comedy — Alceste, Célimène, Philinte, Éliante; the conflict of moral sincerity and social grace; the most debated play in the Molière canon - 2Buy
L'École des femmes
Molière·1662·The comic masterpiece that made Molière — Arnolphe and Agnès; the man who tries to keep his future wife ignorant fails; the most perfectly constructed of the earlier comedies - 3Buy
L'Avare
Molière·1668·The Plautine comedy — Harpagon and his gold; the miser who prefers his money to his children; the most classical and most satirically savage of the great comedies - 4Buy
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Molière·1670·The comédie-ballet — Monsieur Jourdain who wants to be a gentleman; the social comedy of class aspiration; the broadest and most theatrical of the great plays - 5Buy
Les Femmes savantes
Molière·1672·The comedy of pedantry — Philaminte and the précieuses who confuse learning with wisdom; the satire of intellectual pretension; the late parallel to Le Misanthrope
Le Misanthrope — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Le Misanthrope a comedy or a serious play?
Le Misanthrope is both — Molière called it a comédie, but its hero's moral position is taken seriously by the play even as he is satirized; the Romantic reading (Rousseau, later Goethe) sees Alceste as a tragic hero; the classical reading sees him as a comic fool; the ambiguity is the play's greatest achievement.
What is Alceste's problem?
Alceste's problem is not his hatred of hypocrisy but his vanity about his hatred of hypocrisy — he wants to be the one honest man in a world of liars, and this desire is itself a form of amour-propre; his friend Philinte's accommodating social grace is equally honest and more humane.
Who is Célimène?
Célimène is the witty young widow whom Alceste loves despite (or because of) her social brilliance and inconstancy — she writes satirical portraits of her admirers behind their backs, maintains all of them in parallel, and when exposed, refuses to follow Alceste to his desert; she is the social world Alceste cannot leave and cannot accept.
What is the significance of the sonnet scene?
The sonnet scene (Act I, scene 2) is where Alceste and Oronte argue about a sonnet Oronte has written — Alceste honestly says it is bad, Philinte praises it diplomatically; the scene sets out the terms of the play's central conflict between sincere and polite social judgment.
What is Rousseau's reading of Le Misanthrope?
In the Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles (1758), Rousseau argues that Molière's plays corrupt the audience by making vice (represented by Alceste's enemies) attractive and virtue (represented by Alceste) ridiculous — the theatre is morally dangerous because it is aesthetically pleasurable; Alceste is Rousseau's hero.
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