TARTUFFE

Author: Molière
Year: Unknown (1664)
Publisher: Wydawnictwo "Klasyka"
Language: Polish (translator Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński)

In the English-speaking world, Molière is sometimes said to be the Shakespeare of France. Although Shakespeare predated Molière and for that reason may have some precedence, this comparison fails on two fronts. First, Shakespeare, although writing some comedies, mostly excelled in tragedies whereas Molière almost exclusively wrote farces and satires. Second, Molière holds a far more prominent status in France than Shakespeare does in England. In fact, the French language itself is traditionally referred to as “la langue de Molière”.

One of Molière’s most famous plays, and the one that nearly cost him his career and his good standing with King Louis XIV, was “Świętoszek” (“Tartuffe”). On the off chance that someone is reading these words and the even slimmer chance that that person is unfamiliar with this play, I suppose a spoiler alert is appropriate at this point.

The play opens with Orgon’s mother Madame Pellier chastising everybody in Orgon’s household, extolling Tartuffe’s piety and deriding her family’s inadequacies. She then declares that she will not stay for one more minute in the wretched place her son calls home. Orgon’s family tries to dissuade her and to convince her of Tartuffe’s fraudulent intentions, but to no avail. Orgon arrives and inquires about Tartuffe. He is told about the different accidents, ailments and misfortunes that each family member has suffered during his absence but is preoccupied with the well-being of Tartuffe alone, exclaiming “poor fellow!” at every bit of news about him, even though he is repeatedly told that Tartuffe has never been better. Tartuffe, who for a long time remains unseen in the play, is a self-proclaimed holy man who has obviously convinced Orgon that he is his path to righteousness and salvation.

This sets the stage for the play’s first half. The more Orgon’s wife, son, daughter, brother-in-law, and servants strive to expose Tartuffe’s deceit, the more Orgon defends him, even bestowing his estate and his daughter’s hand in marriage upon him. Moreover, he entrusts Tartuffe with a potentially incriminating secret letter.

A turning point presents itself when Tartuffe endeavours to seduce Orgon’s wife, Elmire. Although Elmire initially conceals the incident, Orgon’s son Damis, who has monitored the scene from a hiding place, exposes the truth. Forced to protect her own honour as well as that of Damis, Elmire tells her husband to hide underneath a table while she encourages Tartuffe to make advances toward her a second time. Seeing with his own eyes how Tartuffe has deceived his confidence, Orgon confronts him and commands him to leave his house at once. Tartuffe, however, retorts that by Orgon’s own decree Tartuffe is now the Master of the estate and he commands everyone to leave what he now considers his house. When they refuse, Tartuffe calls the authorities. The king’s soldiers arrive at the house and to everyone’s surprise arrest Tartuffe for fraud and deceit, a testament to the king’s astute judgment.

Already a celebrated playwright and actor with the king’s favour, Molière penned the play in 1664. Although it was met with acclaim from the audience at the premiere and even with the approval of the king himself, the Catholic Church took offence at its criticism of religious zeal and Tartuffe’s deceit. It swiftly moved to ban the play and pressured the king to withdraw his support. Molière revised the play to make it less controversial but that version, too, was banned. It was not until 1669 that a third and heavily revised version received the king’s approval and the Church’s acquiescence. This is the version we know today as the previous manuscripts were either lost or destroyed.

It is tantalising to imagine what the original “Świętoszek” might have contained that drew the Church’s ire. In a letter to the king, it appears that Molière sought to clarify that he was by no means criticising the Church or churchly people but rather the evildoers who take advantage of the king’s devout subjects. It is not entirely unreasonable to propose that the deus ex machina ending was added to flatter the king, but this is an unsubstantiated guess and it is even more uncertain if it contributed at all to tipping the scales in Molière’s favour.

Another speculation might be that Madame Pellier had a bigger role in earlier drafts. Either that, or she was not in them at all. For it seems that after she disappears after the opening scenes, she reappears only after Orgon has become aware of Tartuffe’s betrayal. Still being convinced of Tartuffe’s virtues she admonishes her son Orgon for having lost his faith in him. Orgon is furious that his mother refuses to believe him when he tells her about the true intentions of Tartuffe and to drive the point home, the maid Dorine says

“This is fair payment, sir, for what we received.
You wouldn't believe us; now you're not believed.”*

It is not unlikely that Madame Pellier’s naïveté was part of what sparked the vehement protests by the clergy, but it is also possible that Molière, after having removed most of the controversial material from the manuscript added a sweet and pious little lady to serve as a backdrop to Orgon’s awakening. We will probably never know.

On a higher level, Molière’s critique is not as much directed at the Church as at the gullibility of the general public. It is a curious quirk of the human mind that makes us prone to have faith on words alone but will ignore reality until we see it with our own eyes. Some would say that appealing to emotions is the easiest way to fool the masses. “Wenn du lügst, dann lüge gründlich, und vor allem bleibe bei dem, was du gelogen hast”**. Others would claim that faith comes directly from God and transcends the need for evidence.

Molière warns us against closing our eyes when we open our hearts.

A shoutout to the translator Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński whose Polish translation, despite being almost a century old, still feels fresh and current. It appears to serve as a testimony to the importance of the French language to and the elitism among the theatre-going population of Poland during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, that the play had to wait over 250 years before it was translated.

 

* Molière, “Tartuffe or the Hypocrite”, translated by Jeffrey D. Hoeper (2009)
** Goebbels, Joseph “Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik”, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel. Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1939–41, (1941)