Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme [The Bourgeois Gentleman]

Julia Prest (University of St Andrews)

Ed. by David Williams, University of Sheffield
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.03: French Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century: Classical and Baroque, 1600-1700.
Vol. editors: Heather Kirk (University of Western Ontario), Kathrina LaPorta (New York University), Polly Mangerson (DePaul University), Julia Prest (University of St Andrews), Allison Stedman (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1670

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Comedy
Play

Resources

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), its text by Molière and its music by Lully, is widely recognized as the high-point of the comédie-ballet. Its success as a comédie-ballet is owing largely to the way in which the music and dance are woven into the fabric of the action. Formally, the published version of the play is structured in five acts (although the original version was laid out in three) with musical interludes between each act. But this is somewhat misleading, as the action is essentially continuous, and the so-called intermèdes are far more integrated than their name would suggest. The interlude between Acts I and II, for …

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2551 words

Citation: Prest, Julia. "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 April 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4089, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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