Les Précieuses Ridiculesby Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere)
(figure available in print form)
Represented for the first time at the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon on November 18, 1659, this play was an immediate success. The play is built on the theme of two provincial girls, anxious at all cost to be part of the fashionable circle of Paris, who want to act according to the new code of behavior established by the Précieuses. The entertainment comes from the comic contrast between desire and elegance without common sense and pretended knowledge without real culture. Moliere’s parody of the language of the Précieuses can be found in sentences such as : “Voiturez ici les commodites de la conversation” (“carriage us here the conveniences of the conversation”). The valets, meanwhile, with no sense of decorum, offer to show their wounds and are actually undressed on stage.
Here is the view of the Précieuses, as Moliere sees it, on the subject of marriage:Mon pere... le mariage ne doit jamais arriver qu’apres les autres aventures. Il faut qu’un aimant, pour etre agreable, sache debit er les beaux sentiments, pousser le doux, le tendre, le passionne, et que sa recherche soit dans les formes. Premierement, il doit voir au temple, ou la promenade, ou dans quelque ceremonie publique, la personne dont il devient amoureux; ou bien etre conduit fatalement chez elle par un parent ou un ami, et sortir de la tout raveur et melanolique. Il cache un temps sa passion a l’objet aime, et cependant lui rend plusieurs visites, ou l’on ne manque jamais de mettre sur le tapis une question galante qui exerce les esprits de l’assemblee. Le jour de la declaration arrive, qui se doit faire ordinairement dans une allee de quelque jardin, tandis que la compagnie s’est un peu eloignee et cette declaration est suivie d’un prompt courroux, qui paralt a notre rougeur et qui, pour un temps, bannit l’aimant de notre presence....
Here is the English translation:My father... marriage must arrive only after other adventures. A lover, in order to be considered pleasant, must express love, expose sweetness, tenderness, passion and that his quest be made according to propriety. First, he must meet the person he is in love with at a church, or at a promenade, or some public event, or he must be fatally introduced to her by a relative or a friend, and leave the premises all dreaming and melancholic. He hides his passion toward the person loved for a while, nevertheless paying several visits, where he never fails to pose a gallant question to excite the minds of the circle. The day of the declaration arrives, which must be done normally in the path of a garden, while the company is a little far from them. This declaration is followed by a prompt retreat due to our blushing which, for some time, will banish the lover from our presence...
The same characteristics of the Preciosite but this time reversing the role can be found in the society of the 19th century. Men put themselves at the center of attention and rendered prevailing standard of behavior less uncouth and perhaps in some cases more sensitive by stressing a new fashion code and a special mode of behavior. The name of the extraordinary movement who spread from England to the rest of Europe was Dandyism.
