This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks delve into a new literary series as we read the comedic play Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Moliere. If you want to listen in to the read along of this play, you can view replays on the readings on the House of Humane Letters YouTube channel. Thomas begins the conversation on this play by setting up the cultural and literary context in which Moliere was working, as well as some more biographical background on the author and actor himself. Angelina points out some differences between satire and didacticism. She and Thomas also talk about the influence of Roman comedy in Moliere’s playwriting.
Angelina introduces Act 1 with a question of how Moliere shows the audience what to think of Tartuffe before the character himself ever comes on stage. Thomas talks a little about the characters we first meet, and Angelina highlights the references to enchantments as they read through key portions of these opening scenes. Join us again next week when we will finish up this entertaining play!
If you weren’t able to join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination“, you can still purchase the recordings and find out what you missed! Also, don’t miss the launch the HHL publishing wing, Cassiodorus Press! Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!
Commonplace Quotes:He had the comic vision of himself as well as of the rest of humanity. He might mock the vices of the world, but he could also mock himself for hating the world, in the spirit of a superior person, on account of its vices.
Robert Lynn, from his essay “Moliere” in Books and AuthorsWe think old books are strange; but we are the aliens.
Dr. Jason Baxter The Burial of MoliereBy Andrew Lang
Dead–he is dead! The rouge has left a trace
On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear,
Even while the people laughed that held him dear
But yesterday. He died,–and not in grace,
And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace
To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear,
And gold must win a passage for his bier,
And bribe the crowd that guards his resting-place.
Ah, Moliere, for that last time of all,
Man’s hatred broke upon thee, and went by,
And did but make more fair thy funeral.
Though in the dark they hid thee stealthily,
Thy coffin had the cope of night for pall,
For torch, the stars along the windy sky!
Menaechmi, or The Twin-Brothers by Plautus
Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse
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Episode 169: Intro to P. G. Wodehouse, “Code of the Woosters,” Ch. 1-4
Episode 168: The “Best of” Series – Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!!, Ep. 104
Episode 167: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Timilyn Downey, Ep. 122
Episode 166: Shakespeare’s “Othello,” Acts 4 & 5
Episode 165: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Act 3
Episode 164: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Acts 1 & 2
Episode 163: Introduction to Shakespeare’s “Othello”
Episode 162: "Ion" – On Socratic Dialogue and Reading Plato
Episode 161: The Literary Life of Lia Techand
Episode 160: Aristotle’s “Poetics” Part 2
Episode 159: Aristotle's "Poetics", Part 1
Episode 158: Introduction to Aristotle’s “Poetics”
Episode 157: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Thomas Banks, Ep. 78
Episode 156: The “Best of” Series – Why Read Fairy Tales, Ep. 70
Episode 155: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Wendi Capehart, Ep. 69
Episode 154: The “Best of” Series – What Is the Literary Life?, Ep. 1
Episode 153: Our Literary Lives of 2022
Episode 152: Dracula At the Movies
Episode 151: The Literary Life Podcast Reading Challenge 2023
Episode 150: “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 18-End
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