For 400 years, Molière, without borders?

Scene from 'Eternal Impostor', a production based on comedies by Molière and directed by Dainius Kazlauskas at the Lenkom Theater in Moscow, December 8, 2020 © Vyacheslav Prokofyev / TASS via Getty

Text by: Florian Riva |

Patrice Martin

3 min

The man who embodies French theater, and from whom we borrow the stage name to qualify the French language, "language of Molière", the most translated French-speaking author read and performed in the whole world, will be celebrated in 2022 with multiple manners, for the four hundred years of his birth.

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National glory without a doubt despite the past four centuries, and whose plays are still relevant today through the humor of satire, the taste for freedom and rebellion that they convey in the face of all the tyrannies and hypocrisies, that of the powerful, fathers, husbands, pies, ridiculous and precious.

For this survey with such rich contours, we will have as a wise guide to the country of Molière, 

, professor of cultural history, screenwriter, essayist and curator of the

in Versailles.

Discover or rediscover Molière on the garden side: the man he was, the work he wrote and performed, and the flamboyant legacy he left in France and around the world.

A universal French

What in the life of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin enabled this 17th century man to become, under the name of Molière, the most famous French playwright, translated and performed in the world?

And, to give its name, among other things, to the French language?

What enabled man to become the author?

How could the thirty or so plays which feature human characters from the 17th century in France so often inspire adaptations in all latitudes?

It is the genius of Molière, friend of the king and at the same time of the people, whose word he spoke, through the transgression of laughter!

Martial Poirson's responses:

Molière without borders

Molière's heritage is therefore worldwide and has found possible adaptations everywhere.

With regard to the French-speaking area of ​​Africa, and in particular the Maghreb, it obviously occupies a central place, but if Molière arrived in the colonizer's trunks, he transmitted at the same time as his language, his weapon of transgression. massive, and liberation, through laughter ...

How is the best-known French-speaking author in the world translated and perceived there?

The answers of Martial Poirson, organizer of the

colloquium organized at the Montansier Theater in Versailles on June 9 and 10, and which will be the opportunity to go see Molière as it is translated, performed and perceived in the different areas linguistic and cultural.

In Africa as in other cultural areas, from the United States to China, via Latin America, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Cambodia and Vietnam, RFI's foreign language editors will go, during the year 2022, in the footsteps of this universal Molière who shines in many languages ​​other than his own.

To be continued...

2022 Molière year: ask for the program!

The Molière exhibition

, is being held from January 15 to April 17, 2022 at the Espace Richaud in Versailles.

Explanations from Martial Poirson, the curator of the exhibition which features nearly 200 works around the genealogy of the great man, the making of a legend, the revisited myth.

The exhibition will be followed by the other highlights of the celebrations of the city of Versailles: in May the inauguration of a statue of Molière, and in June, the

, 26th edition which multiplies the Moleresque events and shows in the theaters and the streets of the city, in particular at the Montansier Theater where the colloquium on

Explanations from the creator of this festival which brings together more than a hundred thousand people each year and current mayor of Versailles, François de Mazières.

For further

• Molière, from acrobat to favorite

  .

  Dunod Graphic, a graphic novel by Martial Poirson and Rachid Marai, 2022.

• Molière, The Factory of National Glory

  , by Martial Poirson,

  Threshold - Fine Books, 2022.

• M for Molière

   :

  Martial Poirson and Jean-Pierre Aubrit, 2022.

• The Atlas Molière

  ,

  by C. DeAlberto & J. Grandin (infographics) and C. Schuwey

  (texts and sources), Les Arènes, 2022.

• Moliere

  :

  The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations, 2022.

• The world according to Molière

  ,

  Christophe Barbier

  , Tallandier, 2021.

• Molière's dictionary in love

  , Francis Huster, Plon, 2021.

• Le Paris de Molière

  ,

  Jacqueline Razgonnikoff, Editions Alexandrines, 2021 reissue.

• Molière

  , by Georges Forestier, Gallimard, 2018.

• The novel by Monsieur de Molière

  , Mikhail Boulgakov, 1933-1962, Gallimard.

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