Marivaux 9781487596163

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MARIVAUX The last thirty years have seen a renewed interest in the novels, plays, and essays of Marivaux. Each year more of his work is made available to the public in partial editions. More and better studies have appeared, superseding the old, and, in the last thirty years, almost all of his plays have been performed. Today no corner of his work remains unexplored: our knowledge of his life, which had been until recently a tissue of fancy and anecdote, has been enhanced by the discovery of a few facts. This critical study of the entire body of Marivaux's writing sets out to tell whether this attention represents a securely established place for Marivaux among the great French writers, or simply a vogue. It consists of a careful analysis of the individual works, in chronological order rather than in systematic groups, as is customary, showing the development of Marivaux's thinking, and the intimate relationships among the plays, novels, and essays of any given period. A history of the reception of the works, by scholars and critics from Marivaux s time to the present, presents succinctly the historical perspective through which the modern reader may understand the long indifference to Marivaux in France, and his contemporary "discovery." Professor Greenes work will be of great value to all students of the eighteenth century in France. Because of his lively interest in the theatre arts it will also be valuable for directors planning to produce the plays of Marivaux. E. j . H . GREENE holds degrees from the University of Alberta and the University de Paris. Since 1938 he has been a member of the staff of the University of Alberta. He has been Professor of French and Head of the Department of Romance Languages since 1953.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ROMANCE SERIES

1. Guido Cavalcanti's Theory of Love, by J. E. SHAW 2. Aspects of Racinian Tragedy, by JOHN c. LAPP 3. The Idea of Decadence in French Literature, 1830-1900, by A. E. CARTER

4. Le Roman de Renart dans la littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au moyen âge, par JOHN FLINN 5. Henry Céard : Idéaliste détrompé, par RONALD FRAZEE 6. La Chronique de Robert de Clari : Etude de la langue et du style, par P. F. DEMBOWSKI 7. Zola before the Rougon-Macquart, by JOHN c. LAPP 8. The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750–1799: A Study in the History of Ideas, by J. A. LEITH 9. Marivaux, by E. J. H. GREENE

MARIVAUX

by E. J. H. Greene

UNIVERSITY

OF

TORONTO

PRESS

© University of Toronto Press, 1965 Printed in Canada

Preface MABTVAUX'S DEATH, on February 12, 1763, went almost unnoticed. Today no corner of his work remains unexplored, and a few facts have even been discovered about his life, our knowledge of which has, until recently, been a tissue of fancy and anecdote. Although a scholarly edition of his collected works is still lacking, the constitution of such an edition is at least now possible, thanks in large part to the labours of Frédéric Deloffre. Meanwhile, each year more of Marivaux's work is made available to the public in partial editions, and more and better studies appear, superseding the old. In the last thirty years, almost all the plays have been performed, even such an unpromising one as Félicie. Indeed, the modern French stage has been so enriched with "new" Marivaux plays that Jean Vilar has declared that their author can properly be considered to belong to the twentieth century. Even during the darkest period of his eclipse, it was always admitted that he was, in a minor way, unique and inimitable. But is his place secure, at long last, among the great? Or is the present interest simply a vogue? Jean Fabre, one of the best informed and certainly one of the most penetrating of his modern critics, thought these questions worth raising, at the conclusion of his article in the Encyclopédie de la Pléïade. The present writer had also been asking himself these questions, and others, such as what, if anything, the term marivaudage might mean. We do not find in the writings of critics, many of whom nevertheless delight in inventing new words, such terms as manage, stendhalage or proustage. On the other hand, one does find euphuïsme and gongorisme. The distinction would seem to be between writers who had something of new and durable interest to say and who said it in such a way that style and content are one and indivisible, and other writers who had nothing particularly new to say but who succeeded in creating a shortlived vogue because of their verbal ingenuity. The existence of the term marivaudage would appear to indicate that Marivaux belongs to

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PREFACE

the second category, yet other facts indicate that he is reaching an everwider public, that he has something of durable interest to say and that he says it in a way that now seems right and natural. Could it be that the term marivaudage was invented and perpetuated precisely in order to provide a pretext for ignoring this author's constant originality, so disturbing to the habits of feeling and thinking of his contemporaries and their successors? Was marivaudage nothing but a convenient label, recognizing Marivaux's uniqueness in a pejorative way, but enabling his earliest critics to stow him away on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet, out of the reach of children (who might be tempted to take the rules of his kind of play as applying also to the world of adults)? To test this hypothesis, it occurred to the present writer that the best approach would be an examination of all the individual works, and their reception, taken in chronological order. There was another reason for taking this approach. A novelist, an essayist, and a dramatist writing for two very different theatres, Marivaux has suffered also from a tendency among scholars of the last hundred years or so to categorize and classify an author's works by genres. It therefore seemed doubly interesting to attempt the chronological approach, in the hope that one might more readily discover what common preoccupations there are in Marivaux's productions in these different genres, and how these preoccupations in their articulated forms have fared down to our time. The story of the reception of Marivaux's work is the story of an expanding universe, confirming, in unexpected fashion, ideas put forward by Marivaux himself in his last essays. To take a recent illustration of this proposition, a review in The Times Literary Supplement of December 22, 1961, entitled "Onward from Freud," describes Dr. W. R. D. Fairbairn as "probably the most original and gifted of all contemporary psycho-analysts." According to the anonymous reviewer, Dr. Fairbairn assumes that, from the very beginning of life, the child's main problem is the achievement and maintenance of satisfying interpersonal relationships rather than that of finding instinctive outlets; and that the neurotic disturbances from which we all suffer are due not so much to the tight rein which civilization has imposed upon our instincts, as Freud believed, as to the difficulties which are attendant upon the long period of human development from helpless, dependent babyhood to a maturity in which love can be given and taken upon equal terms. To a person familiar with Marivaux's works, such an assumption seems, at first glance, not to be going onward from Freud so much as going

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backward to Marivaux. A better way however to state the point is to say that we are still going onward with Marivaux, having Dr. Fairbairn as a companion for a while. The record shows that the pleasure afforded by Marivaux's works has become richer and more complex with each new explanation or representation of human actions. There seems to be little doubt about it today: Marivaux is a durable artist with something to say. Meanwhile one may hope that the label marivaudage has forever lost its baleful fascination since the publication of Frédéric Deloffre's Marivaux et le Marivaudage, which work shows that this allegedly mysterious phenomenon would yield to scientific examination. I am much indebted to those of my confrères en Marivaux, to whom I turned for help and advice and who gave me encouragement as well. I wish to pay homage to their unfailing generosity. In particular, my thanks go to Professor Henri Roddier for effective support when I needed it most; to Professor Frederic Deloffre who probably knows more about Marivaux than any other living person; to Professor Jean Fabre who lent me, in 1959, his only copy of a study which appeared a year later, unfortunately in a truncated version, in the Fayard Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises. I wish to acknowledge a special debt to Bernard Dort. His recent edition of the Theatre is not only the best available at present, but is, in format, a thing of beauty which Marivaux would have loved to handle. Larroumet, the first Marivaux specialist, gives me the impression of having written his study with the inhibiting feeling that the ghost of Sainte-Beuve was looking over his shoulder. With M. Dort, I have had the opposite experience, that of writing with the stimulating certainty that I shall have a highly perceptive, highly critical yet always interested reader. I wish also to express my thanks to Miss Jean C. Jamieson, Associate Editor of the University of Toronto Press, for the most helpful editorial assistance an author could wish for. This work has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities Research Council of Canada using funds provided by the Canada Council, and with assistance from the Publications Fund of the University of Toronto Press. E.J.H.G.

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Contents PREFACE

V

NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION

2

1. The Early Works

Le Père prudent et équitable, 4; Les Effets surprenants de la Sympathie, 6; Pharsamon and La Voiture embourbée, 13; Le Bilboquet, 20; The Two Travesties, 21

3

2. Débuts, Literary and Social

28

3. Italian Plays and a French Spectator

44

4. A Philosopher on the Stage and on the Roads

88

Lettres sur les Habitants de Paris, 31; "Pensées sur différents sujets," 39; "Lettres contenant une Aventure," 40

L'Amour et la Vérité, 45; Spéculations, Financial and Biographical, 47; Arlequin poli par l'Amour, 48; Annibal, 53; La Surprise de l'Amour, 56; Le Spectateur français, 61; La Double Inconstance, 71; Le Prince travesti, 77; La Fausse Suivante, 81

Le Dénouement imprévu, 89; L'Ile des Esclaves, 91; L'Héritier de Village, 97; L'Indigent philosophe, 99; L'Ile de la Raison, 106; La [Seconde] Surprise de l'Amour, 111; Le Triomphe de Plutus, 116; La Colonie, 118

5. Women and Men

124

6. The Peak Period, 1733–1735

166

Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, 125; La Réunion des Amours, 135; Le Triomphe de l'Amour, 137; Les Serments indiscrets, 143; L'Ecole des Mères, 148; Le PetitMaître corrigé, 150; L'Heureux Stratagème, 158

Le Cabinet du Philosophe, 167; La Vie de Marianne, 176; Le Paysan parvenu, 187; La Méprise, 194; La Mère confidente, 195

X

CONTENTS

7. The Last Great Plays Le Legs, 200; Les Fausses Confidences, 207; La Joie imprévue, 217; Les Sincères, 218; L'Epreuve, 223

200

8. The Academician, 1742–1763 Marivaux as Seen by His Contemporaries, 232; Marivaux at the Academy, 242; The Reflections, 245; Miscellaneous Prose Works, 250; The Last Plays, 252; The Final Years, 272

232

9. The Eclipse, 1763–1848 Variations on Old Themes, 280; New Contributions, 282; Marivaux on Private and Public Stages, 285; Restoration Critics and the Romantic Period, 287

280

10. ". . . Not Always Amusing, but Marivaux" The Turning Point, 293; Marivaux on the Stage, 1880, 297; Editions, 298

293 1848-

11. Marivaux Joins the Great The Prize for Eloquence and Its Aftermath, 300; Academic Criticism, 1881-1917, 302; Marivaux on the Stage, 1880-1917, 309

300

12. Between Two Wars, 1918-1939 The Essays and Novels, 313; The plays, 315; Trends in Criticism, 1918–1939, 319

313

13. Marivaux, an Author of the Mid-Twentieth Century Popularizations, 328; Academic Studies, 329; Play Production and Drama Critics, 1940-1960, 334; Editions, 341

327

CONCLUSION

343

BIBLIOGRAPHY

347

INDEX

363

MARIVAUX

NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION IN ORDER TO REDUCE FOOTNOTES TO A MINIMUM, yet still give the reader a chance to verify those statements in the text which have a source in print, the following measures have been adopted: ( 1 ) a comprehensive bibliography has been provided; long titles from it appear in the footnotes in abbreviated, but easily recognizable form; (2) quotations from those works of Marivaux which are not readily accessible are identified in the text by reference to the 1781 Veuve Duchesne edition, in the form: (V, 442). A similar practice has been adopted for the works which Frédéric Deloffre has recently made available in the original version; in each case a footnote indicates when a Deloffre edition is being used. Finally, no footnote is given when there are enough indications in the text to enable the reader to identify the source in the bibliography, and when the source itself is short. For example: the reader who is willing to take the trouble to look up the interesting article by Georges Couton on Marivaux's father does not need a footnote giving him a particular page number. Once he has the article in his hands, he will read all of it.

i. The Early Works BEMARKABLY LITTLE is KNOWN OF MABiVAUx's LIFE, apart from the dates of his works. He obviously considered that his private life was strictly his own affair and of no legitimate interest to the public. What elements of his writings are autobiographical is a matter of speculation. His contemporaries had little to contribute apart from comments on his character in his last years, anecdotes and misinformation. Recent scholarship has stripped away the misinformation and made it easier to assess the value of the anecdotes and the comment, but has supplied very few facts. It would seem that Mme Durry, Frederic Deloffre and Georges Couton have produced as much as systematic research can uncover, and that any new information will come to light only by chance. Surely, one thinks, there must be some Marivaux letters somewhere; but autograph dealers have never heard of any. The biographer is therefore reduced to reproducing what few facts there are and filling in the gaps with questions. Pierre Carlet was baptized in Paris, in the parish of Saint Gervais, on February 8, 1688. The traditional date of his birth, the 4th, is thus probably correct. Some time between 1699 and 1702 his father, Nicolas Carlet, was made Director of the Mint at Riom, the former administrative capital of Auvergne. The post brought with it a small apartment and a modest income. The father occupied this post until his death on April 14, 1719, and his widow, née Marie Bulet, requested and obtained a temporary authorization to continue in his place. M. Couton has discovered some correspondence suggesting that Nicolas Carlet was a rather fussy, over-scrupulous man, perhaps not very well fitted for his functions. The Intendant spoke of him as a person whose head was full of difficulties and extraordinary suppositions. What was the mother like? Were there any other children? How much of Pierre's childhood was spent in Paris? Where did he go to school?: he said later that he had a fair knowledge of Latin and none of Greek. In the absence of answers to such questions, it is impossible to estimate what formative influences home and school had on the boy.

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MARIVAUX

One cannot assume that he inherited his father's temperament, although he must have reacted to it in some way, but in which way? The son turns up again in Paris in 1710. On November 30 he registered in the Faculty of Law as Pierre de Carlet, considering perhaps the nobiliary particle a prerequisite for legal studies. He did not become a brilliant law student: from 1710 to 1713 the traces of his career at the Faculty form a meandering trickle which is finally lost in the sand. Mme Durry, who discovered these facts, suggests that Pierre used his registrations in law as camouflage in order to keep his family quiet while he set out on a career as a writer. No doubt Nicolas Carlet would not have approved. The son must have had a strong sense of his true vocation, for he was already writing voluminously. When one reads the early works in sequence, one imagines this young writer as bursting with ideas and projects, eager to experiment, yet still unsure of himself or of his talent and future role in the literary life of the time. Or even, as we shall see, of the name he was to use. LE PÈBE PRUDENT ET ÉQUITABLE, OU CRISPIN L'HEUREUX FOURBE

According to the traditional anecdote, first told by La Porte in 1759, Marivaux's earliest known work, a one-act comedy in verse, was written in a week in order to win a bet. It is interesting only for the questions it raises: entirely derivative, its subject is banal, the intrigue is hackneyed and awkwardly handled, the versification faulty. The title corresponds so little to what follows that one suspects it was thought of separately. Perhaps it had been set as the theme when the wager was made, and perhaps its author strung together whatever bits and pieces he could remember from plays he knew. There is none of the originality of the later Marivaux in this first play. Not even a slighting allusion by Crispin to the Ancients can be said to be peculiar to the author, since such remarks must have been characteristic of the young generation of wits who read Fontenelle. La Forte's comment is that all the wager proved was that a poor play is an easy thing for a man of wit. From our point of view it proves much more: that in his early twenties this young man of wit was familiar, not only with Molière, but also with contemporary dramatic production, notably that of Dufresny and Regnard, even if he had as yet nothing of his own to contribute. And further, so interested was he in theatre that either he could in fact concoct this comedy in a week or he had it already more or less written in his papers.

THE EAELY WORKS

O

When was it composed? The answers to this question have given some fanciful twists to Marivaux biography. The only facts are that it was approved on March 22, 1712, by an attorney named Constant, and that it was published anonymously the same year in Limoges and offered for sale in Paris at the same time. This publication seems to have passed unnoticed. La Porte, who assumed that the play appeared in print for the first time in the 1758 edition of Marivaux's theatre, said that the author was barely out of college when he wrote it. Others have said that he was eighteen, which would place it in 1706; this is obviously wrong, since the play owes much to Regnard's Légataire universel, first performed in January 1708. Others again, presumably on the strength of this first edition, have moved the whole Marivaux family from Riom to Limoges, at some unspecified date. But Nicolas Carlet remained in Riom, and remained Nicolas Carlet, whatever variations his son was writing on the name. The most interesting detail of the edition is the signature, M***, of the dedication to "Monsieur Rogier, Seigneur du Buisson, Lieutenant civil et de police en la sénéchaussée et siège présidial de Limoges": this M 0