Controversy in French Drama Molires Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence [Paperback]

In 1664, Moli?re's Tartuffe was banned from public performance. This book provides a detailed, in-depth account of five-year struggle (1664-69) to have the ban lifted and, so doing, sheds important new light on 1660s France and the ancien r?gime more broadly.1. The Struggle for Influence: The Stakes and their Protagonists 2. What Is a faux d?vot? The Hypocrite 3. What Is a faux d?vot? The Zealot 4. What Is a vrai d?vot and Is He a v?ritable homme de bien? 5. The Struggle for Influence: Tartuffe in an Age of Absolutism

In this important new monograph, Julia Prest sets the five most intense years of the Tartuffe controversy  the period of its banning, from 1664 to 1669  in the context of the varied interests competing for authority in society and, especially, for influence over the young king. & Julia Prests attractively written monograph is now essential reading for understanding the text of the play itself, and the whole controversy that surrounded it. (Richard Maber, Oxford University Press Journals  French Studies, Vol. 71, January, 2017)?

Julia Prests Controversy in French Drama: Moli?res Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence elucidates standard narratives of the 166469 Tartuffe controversy and adds new dimensions by examining a wide swath of primary and secondary sources. & Grounded in religious history and synthesizing French-language and English-language scholarship on Tartuffe, this book is sure to have a long shelf life. Prest provides crucial literary and historical context, clearly articulating the stakes of the Tartuffe debates. (Daniel Smith, Comparative Drama, Vol. 50 (1), September, 2016)

The Shape of [Prest's] argument is essentially chiastic, with the 'struggle for influence' of the first and last chapters encasing three central pieces which focus, relatedly, on the nature and meaning of true and false devotion in the period . . . The valuable insight which Prest affords is to bring out how, alP