The Evolution and Rules of Classical French Drama
How the rules of classical French comedy and the zaniness of commedia dell’arte influenced Molière
Onstage at Lantern Theater Company September 7 through October 8, 2023, Molière’s comic masterpiece Tartuffe tells the hilarious (and, in its time, controversial) story of a religious hypocrite and the wealthy Parisian taken in by his deception. Written in 1664 but immediately banned, it was a spectacular hit when it finally premiered publicly in 1669. This success, and his many other enduring classics, has made Molière’s name synonymous with classic French comedy. But he was actually refining a form with deep roots, careful philosophies, and international influences.
French drama began with religious and morality plays, where moral instruction was the primary goal. But in the medieval period, a form of farce also became popular, delighting French audiences with its slapstick and high energy. During the Renaissance, French literary thinkers and playwrights synthesized these popular forms with the writings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers like Aristotle and Horace, and they developed a set of rules for theater based on conclusions. When it came to comedy, plays were expected to impart the truth and good moral examples, end happily, and deal with interpersonal events rather than politics or monarchs. They should also be primarily about love.
In the first half of the 17th century, playwright Pierre Corneille — primarily known as a tragedian, but also a writer of comedy — adapted these rules. Corneille is considered one of the three great French playwrights of his century, alongside fellow tragedian Racine and Molière, with whom Corneille collaborated later in life. Corneille thought all plays, comic and tragic alike, should focus primarily on nobles, and that bad acts should only be depicted with non-noble characters. He agreed with the Renaissance figures that comedies should be primarily about love and that moral codes should be upheld within the story — no one should be seen to profit from ill intentions. These rules were meant to achieve “les bienséances”: the concept that literature should uphold and reinforce morality and good taste, even at the expense of faithfully depicting historical events.
Classic French comedy was written in alexandrines: lines of 12 syllables with a caesura, or pause, in the middle of each line. The alexandrines were always rhymed; there were three potential rhyme schemes, but Molière wrote in couplets. Shakespearean comedies, for comparison, are in iambic pentameter (10 syllables, generally in a heartbeat rhythm), and only rhyme for emphasis or effect, rather than consistently throughout the text.
Two other crucial rules of classic French drama, including comedies, came from the ancient philosophers. French drama was encouraged to follow Horace’s belief that drama should “please and educate.” Plays were also instructed to follow the three unities, as described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (and which Shakespeare gleefully disregarded):
- Unity of place, which meant that there should be just one location
- Unity of time, which demanded that the play take place within a single 24-hour period
- Unity of action, which called for just one primary story, and for any side plots to be directly tied to this main plot
The goal of these unities was tied to “la vraisemblance”: the belief that onstage action should be believable. Respecting the unities meant limiting the amount audiences were asked to suspend their disbelief. This could even extend to things like soliloquies, in which a character speaks at length alone onstage, often to an audience, and characters were often given onstage confidants to avoid breaking the fourth wall.
These rules were strict. The Académie française — the official authority on the French language — even evaluated Corneille’s Le Cid on whether it met these rules of good drama, setting off major debates and personal attacks within the literary community. But while these debates were raging, another form of comedy was making its mark in France: commedia dell’arte, an improvisational and highly physical form of comedy from Italy originating in the 15th century. Beginning in the 16th century, troupes of commedia actors traveled across Europe, and by 1662 Molière himself shared the Palais-Royale theater with Italian commedia actors and learned from them.
Commedia dell’arte is characterized by improvised dialogue and significant physical and slapstick humor. There are also stock character types: The zanni were the servants whose wily actions help clean up the messes of their masters — Columbina was a female zanni. On the opposite end of the social spectrum, the innamorati were the young lovers of the upper class whose marriage plot is usually central to the play. Pantalone is a rich, retired womanizer, comically old, miserly, and foolish. Il Dottore is a parody of the learned, pompous academic. Other than the fresh faced innamorati, all comic characters in commedia were masked.
Molière combined the rules of classical French theater with the already-popular medieval farce and the trendy commedia dell’arte in his own comedies. Tartuffe adheres to the classical unities — it takes place in a single location, over the course of just a few hours, and the events are all bound together in a single driving plot. But he also was inspired by commedia: While he scripted his plays and did not use improvisation, the physical comedy of commedia is an important factor in Molière’s work, and commedia types are evident throughout. Dorine is a zanni, specifically Columbina. Mariane and Valère are the innamorati, and Orgon is a foolish, wealthy Pantalone.
But Molière also had his own theories on what makes a successful comedy. He responded to the controversies around him by writing La Critique de L’Ecole des femmes (The Critique of “The School for Wives”), in which he lays out some of his theories of playwriting and gently pushes back on the strict rules of classical French comedy: “You haven’t achieved anything in comedy unless your portraits can be seen to be living types,” he wrote. “Making decent people laugh is a strange business.”
When it came to the rules of drama, Molière made one for himself that adhered to just half of Horace: “I wonder if the golden rule is not to give pleasure.” The enduring popularity of his work at home and abroad is proof positive that he followed that rule.
More great reading: See other recent articles and interviews on the Lantern Searchlight blog
Lantern Theater Company’s production of Molière’s Tartuffe, translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur, is onstage September 7 through October 8, 2023, at St. Stephen’s Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
