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Ladies that soar in the realms of Rose-Pink, whose language wears the nodding plumes of intellectual conceit, are traceable to Philaminte and Belise of the Femmes Savantes: and the mordant witty women have the tongue of Celimene.
He strips Folly to the skin, displays the imposture of the creature, and is content to offer her better clothing, with the lesson Chrysale reads to Philaminte and Belise. He conceives purely, and he writes purely, in the simplest language, the simplest of French verse.
He strips Folly to the skin, displays the imposture of the creature, and is content to offer her better clothing, with the lesson Chrysale reads to Philaminte and Belise. He conceives purely, and he writes purely, in the simplest language, the simplest of French verse.
But both the conception and the presentation of Alceste and of Tartuffe, of Celimene and Philaminte, are purely comic, addressed to the intellect: there is no humour in them, and they refresh the intellect they quicken to detect their comedy, by force of the contrast they offer between themselves and the wiser world about them; that is to say, society, or that assemblage of minds whereof the Comic spirit has its origin.
But both the conception and the presentation of Alceste and of Tartuffe, of Celimene and Philaminte, are purely comic, addressed to the intellect: there is no humour in them, and they refresh the intellect they quicken to detect their comedy, by force of the contrast they offer between themselves and the wiser world about them; that is to say, society, or that assemblage of minds whereof the Comic spirit has its origin.
Un monde près de nous a passé tout du long, Est chu tout au travers de notre tourbillon; Et s'il eût en chemin rencontré notre terre, Elle eût été brisée en morceaux comme verre." This announcement of Trissontin's to Philaminte, who begins the parody on the fears caused by the appearance of comets, would not have been a parody four or five centuries ago.
The impression which he leaves upon us at the end of the play is not simply one of the utter folly of learning out of place; in Philaminte, the central female figure, he has depicted the elevation that belongs even to a mistaken and perverted love of what is excellent; and when she finally goes out, ridiculous, baffled, but as unyielding as ever in her devotion to grammar and astronomy, we come near, in the face of her majestic absurdity, to a feeling of respect.
"To love Molière, it is to be disposed to like neither false wit nor pedantic science; it is to know how to recognize at first sight our Trissotins and our Vadius even under their rejuvenated jaunty airs; it is, not to let one's self be captivated at present any more than formerly by the everlasting Philaminte, that affected pretender of all times, whose form only changes and whose plumage is incessantly renewed; it is, to like soundness and directness of mind in others as well as in ourselves.
But she does not like a femme savante, and ridicules, under the name of Damophile, a character which might have been the model for Moliere's Philaminte. This woman has five or six masters, of whom the least learned teaches astrology.
You have only to read the third act to find that Armande, Philaminte and Belise almost invariably express themselves in this style. Proceeding further in the same direction, we discover that there is also such a thing as a professional logic, i.e. certain ways of reasoning that are customary in certain circles, which are valid for these circles, but untrue for the rest of the public.
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