The Poet and the Prince: Revising Moliere and Tartuffe in the French Revolution

Abstract

This article analyzes the legendary relationship between Moliere and Louis XIV, as it was reinterpreted during the French Revolution, by studying revolutionary-era modifications to the text of Tartuffe. Published debates discussing the theater, press commentary, and police reports show how these complementary processes of revision manifest an effort by revolutionaries to void their cultural inheritance of Old Regime legitimacy. By analyzing attempts to expunge monarchal authority from the denouement of Tartuffe and replace it with the law, we see how tenaciously Old Regime political culture clung to the cultural artifacts the revolutionaries sought to reform.