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XI.—Notes on Spanish Sources of Molière

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

The object of this article is to call attention to certain cases of close resemblance between passages in Molière's plays and others taken from Spanish literature or connected with it. Except in details where credit is duly given to the discoverer, none of these cases has ever before been noted, to my knowledge.

It is seldom possible to decide categorically whether or no these parallels are genuine instances of borrowing by Molière, or merely coincidences of thought and expression. Therefore I am content usually to leave the judgment to the reader, after putting the facts before him.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1904

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References

page * note * It is seldom possible to decide categorically whether or no these parallels are genuine instances of borrowing by Molière, or merely coincidences of thought and expression. Therefore I am content usually to leave the judgment to the reader, after putting the facts before him.

page 270 note 1 Grimarest, Vie de Molière, ed. P.-Malassis, 1877, p. 8.

page 271 note 1 Vie de Molière, ed. cit., pp. 75–77. That Grirnarest's information was uncertain is evidenced by the fact that he puts the date of this performance, “après le retour de Baron,” i. e. after Easter, 1670. Now no Don Quixote play appears on the Registre of La Grange from that time till Molière's death ; one might perhaps have been given at some of the visits to court. Moreover Grimarest gives the title as Dom Quixote, and yet says that it relates Sancho's installation in his government—something true of none of the Don Quixote plays except Le Gouvernement de Sanche Pansa.

page 272 note 1 This play I know only through the account of it given by theses Parfaict, Histoire du théâtre français, VI, 21–26.

page 272 note 2 I am indebted to Prof. P. B. Marcou for these two rapprochements. Apparently neither of the passages is covered by any of the French Don Quixote plays.

page 273 note 1 Pp. 136–139.

page 274 note 1 Ticknor gives the name as Lugo y Avila. The copy I saw had this title : Teatro popular: Novelas morales para mostrar los generos de vidas del pueblo, y afectos, costumbres, y pasiones del animo, co aprouechamiento para todas personas, por D. Francisco de Lugo y Davila. En Madrid, etc., Año 1622. Pp. 61b to 76a, Novela tercera, de las dos hermanas.

page 275 note 1 Ch. Sorel, pp. 134–135; and 135, n. 1.

page 275 note 2 II, 12. There is nothing in le Festin de Pierre to show that Molière ever knew the Burlador.

page 276 note 1 On the above passages and the commentators who noted them, see the Despois-Mesnard edition of Molière, V, 462, n. 5.

page 276 note 2 This less happy example is given by Livet in his edition of le Misantrope, Paris, 1883, p. 129. He wrongly gives the reference as silva VI.

page 276 note 3 Ch. Sorel, pp. 136–138.

page 277 note 1 Biblioteca de Autores españoles, xxxiii, 574.

page 278 note 1 The proverb may occur in some earlier refranero, but I have not observed it in any.

page 278 note 2 p. L, vol. II, Obras de Lope de Vega, publicadas por la Real Academia española. 1892.

page 280 note 1 Œuvres de Molière. ed. Despois-Mesnard, II, 105, n. 3. The play is reprinted by V. Fournei, in Les Contemporains de Molière. vol. III, pp. 9–67.

page 281 note 1 Parte veinte y tres de comedias nuevas, etc., Madrid, 1665. (Ticknor library.)

page 283 note 1 See the Despois-Mesnard edition of Molière, V, 172, n. 2.

page 285 note 1 Œuvres de Scarron, Paris, 1786, VII, 173.

page 286 note 1 Teatro completo de Cervantes III, pp. 261–262. (Bibl. clásica.)

page 287 note 1 The collection of entremeses, loas, and jácaras published by Rosell, 2 vols., Madrid, 1872 and 1874, is the only one accessible, and contains some two thirds of Benavente's published work. Almost all of his entremeses were printed by 1645, and some were written as early as 1610.

page 288 note 1 Cf. Despois-Mesnard ed., VII, 221. The Desolation des filoux is printed by Fournel, Contemporains de Molière, III, pp. 177–188.

page 288 note 2 The date of the fourth and last part of d'Ouville‘s Contes. The one referred to may be found on page 51 of l‘Élite des Contes, ed. Ristelhuber, Paris, 1876. D'Ouville tells it as something which took place in the days of Concini, and the minuteness of detail gives it a strong appearance of reality. For other earlier versions of the story, see the same volume, p. 65, n. 1.