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Title: The School for Wives and The Learned Ladies, by Moli¿re: Two comedies in an acclaimed translation. by Richard Wilbur ISBN: 0-15-679502-7 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 15 November, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: My favorite of the Molieres by Wilbur
Comment: I've read all but one of Pulitzer-Prize winner Richard Wilbur's translations of French master playwright Moliere. This is my favorite. I was provoked to laugh out loud many times while reading it, something I rarely do with contemporary comedies, much less ones written in the 17th Century. The School for Wives I found more fresh and delightful than any present-day television sit-com and The Learned Ladies had its moments as well (especially the poetry reading by the pedantic Trissotin).
The School for Wives centers around a man, Arnolfe, who is afraid of being cuckolded. He has raised a girl from when she was very young to know nothing but praying and sewing, so that when she marries she will not have the wherewithal to cheat on him. Of course, a young man in the neighborhood happens to see her while Arnolfe is out. In a series of misunderstandings, the young man ends up enlisting Arnolfe's aid in wooing the girl. Arnolfe's every attempt to thwart their union is in turn thwarted by her. She may have been raised ignorant, but she is not stupid.
The Learned Ladies is, in present context, somewhat misogynist. Much of the comedy revolves around the matriarch of a family who rules her household "like a man." The plot again involves young lovers separated by a willful parent. The daughter of the matriarch wants to wed a young man who is equally in love with her but her mother wants her to wed the stuck-up court poet Trissotin. This is really just a pretext for a lot of the deflation of pomposity at which Moliere excels. For those who like the old battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedies, here is a likely progenitor.
The most famous of Moliere's plays are The Misanthrope, The Hypocondriac and Tartuffe. If you've already read them and like them, then I have no reservation recommending this delightful double-header.
Rating: 5
Summary: Total Joy
Comment: Moliere and Wilbur, though they did not, of course, work together, are a match for Gilbert and Sullivan as a wedding of talents. Each of these plays is very funny and full of insights about human vanity.
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Title: The Misanthrope and Tartuffe by Richard Wilbur ISBN: 0156605171 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 20 October, 1965 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, Alice Kessler-Harris ISBN: 0892550147 Publisher: Persea Books Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Amphitryon (Moliere) by Richard Wilbur ISBN: 0156002116 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 14 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Don Juan: Comedy in Five Acts, 1665 (Harvest Book) by Richard Wilbur, Jean Baptiste Poquelin De Moliere ISBN: 015601310X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, Edwidge Danticat ISBN: 037570504X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 18 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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