Authorship of Molière's works

The authorship of Molière's works has been the subject of controversial debate in the French public ever since the French poet and novelist Pierre Louÿs argued in an article published in 1919 that Pierre Corneille was the author of all works traditionally attributed to Molière: “ Molière est un chef-d'oeuvre de Corneille. " - " Molière is a masterpiece by Corneille. "

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, alias Molière, is firmly anchored in the French collective consciousness as the national poet of France , as the French language is called periphrastically la langue de Molière and the renowned national theater , the Comédie-Française , founded in 1680 by Louis XIV , is called la Maison de Molière , the Molières house, world famous. To question his authorship amounts to heresy . Publications that threaten to expose the national myth as the creation of legends heat up the minds and provoke polemical debates.

In the 21st century attempts are being made to resolve this controversial issue with the help of mathematical and stylometric methods of computer philology .

Proponent of the Corneille thesis: Molière is a Corneille masterpiece

Pierre Louÿs, the first to doubt Molière's authorship, and his successors

The Corneille / Molière controversy began when the French poet, novelist and literary historian Pierre Louÿs, in his 1919 article: L'auteur d'Amphytrion, argued that Pierre Corneille was the author of the comedy Amphitryon and absolutely all of the works, traditionally Molière can be attributed. When Pierre Louÿs, literary connoisseur and admirer of Pierre Corneilles, read the play Amphitryon intensively , he realized that this work of art was composed in a refined style, in the unmistakable handwriting of the great Corneille. Louÿs then studied numerous Molière biographies and found that most of the information provided by the biographers was based on pure conjecture, and he notices that Molière did not leave a single written literary line for posterity:

"Car, si l'on écrivait la vie de Molière sur le thème:" Que sçai-je? », Pas un historien sérieux n'atteindrait la centième page. Corn, avec la resource du «Peut-être», on signe deux tomes in-8 °. "

"If you look at Molière's life according to the motto ( Montaignes )" What do I (really) know? " it would be difficult to get to 100 pages. But with the help of many «maybe» you fill thick foil strips. "

Pierre Louÿs emphasizes that even the most ardent supporters of Molière's authorship cannot deny a close collaboration between the two artists in the case of the ballet tragedy Psyché . In Psyché is a dramatic collaboration of Molière, Pierre Corneille, Philippe Quinault and Lully .

As can be seen in the register of Charles Varlet La Grange , in which Molière's daily performances are recorded, his theater troupe regularly played plays by Pierre Corneille between 1643 and 1673. The two artists lived in the same place, in Rouen in 1644 and in Paris from 1662, and were in close contact.

The short iconoclastic essay: L'auteur d'Amphytrion is published by Pierre Louÿs at the same time, one year after the publication of Abel Lefranc's work: Sous le masque de William Shakespeare: William Stanley, VIe comte de Derby (Under the mask of Shakespeare 1918), in which Abel Lefranc doubts Shakespeare's authorship.

In the following years, Pierre Louÿs tries to confirm his thesis: "Molière is a masterpiece by Corneille" with further smaller articles . In it he expresses himself, for example, on the conspicuous stylistic incongruities, stylistic inconsistencies that can be found in Molière's comedies: refined, highly literary verses are sometimes followed by banal, even syntactically incorrect lines. Louÿs interprets this phenomenon in the sense of his thesis: the elaborate verses come from Corneille's hand, and Molière added the bungling, faulty small verses independently.

Due to the general outrage caused by his essays - sacrilege against the national poet - and because of threatening letters he finally refrained from writing a detailed book on the Corneille / Molière problem. After his death, his notes were scattered.

Henry Poulaille elaborates Louÿ's arguments

In the 1950s, a large part of Pierre Louÿs' lost records fell into the hands of the writer Henry Poulaille, who then publicly took up the hot iron of the Corneille / Molière controversy by publishing the book Corneille sous le masque de Molière in 1957 ( Corneille under the mask of Molière). Poulaille emphasizes various parallels in the biographies of the two artists. Pierre Corneille, who later became the creator of French tragedy, began his literary career as a verse- comedy poet. He wrote nine comedies: Mélite (1629), Clitandre (1630), La Veuve (1631), La Galerie du Palais (1633), La Place royale (1633), La Suivante (1634), L'Illusion comique (1635), Le Menteur (1642), La Suite du Menteur (1644).

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin began his acting career in 1644 in Rouen, the Norman hometown of Corneille, who also lived there at the time. In 1644 he played in Rouen - certainly in the presence of Corneille - his plays. In 1644 Jean-Baptiste Poquelin drew for the first time with the pseudonym Moliere (without an accent). The etymology of this stage name is still a mystery today. Henry Poulaille derives it from the Norman dialectal verb molierer , which means to legitimize . He argues that Corneille and Molière concluded a secret financial pact in Rouen. In the future, Pierre Corneille will write verse comedies for his front man Molière for money as a ghostwriter. Corneille invented the pseudonym Moliere , thereby legitimizing Jean-Baptiste Poquelin as the author of the pieces he would write for him in the future. In 1658 Molière stayed for a long time with the theater company in Rouen, the pact had been renewed there. In 1662 the brothers Thomas Corneille and Pierre Corneille move to Paris. It is just a few steps from Molière's theater. Only the secret pact of cooperation could explain this move. In the same year, L'Ecole des Femmes was performed and then year after year other great successes followed: L'Impromptu de Versailles (1663), Dom Juan (1665), Le Misanthrope (1966), Le Tartuffe (1667), L'Amphytrion (Jan. 1668), L'Avare (Sept. 1668), Georges Dandin (July 1668), L'Avare (Sept. 1668) ...

Hippolyte Wouters and Christine de Ville de Goyet

In the 1990s, two Belgian lawyers, writers and literature lovers became interested in the subject: Hippolyte Wouters and Christine de Ville de Goyet. They examine the rich background knowledge that an author of comedies such as Les Précieuses ridicules , Les Fâcheux , L'Ecole des Femmes , Le Tartuffe , Dom Juan would have to offer. Amphitryon must have had in order to be able to write such highly complex pieces. They come to the conclusion that, according to what can be considered certain of Molière's biography, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin had neither the necessary level of education nor the library necessary for it. In terms of time, too, it was impossible for Molière to write such complicated pieces. After all, as a star actor (he often played the lead role in three performances on the same day), theater director, director and spectacle arranger for Sun King Louis XIV, he worked around the clock. Molière simply had to order and buy plays from professional writers.

In his satirical play Le Destin de Pierre, Hippolyte Wouters stages the pact between Corneille as the future ghostwriter and Molière as his front man.

Denis Boissier

In 2004 the book L'Affaire Molière was published with great attention by the French media . La grande supercherie littéraire (the great literary hoax), in which the novelist Denis Boissier describes the current status of the Corneille / Molière controversy in detail, albeit partly polemically. Together with the Association cornélienne de France , Denis Boissier has set up a very detailed website on which he underpins all the arguments in favor of Corneille's authorship with numerous documents.

Computer philology deals with the Corneille / Molière dispute

Digital lexicometric analysis, measurement of the intertextual distance to the authorship assignment

In 2001 an article by researchers from the University of Grenoble appears in the English-language journal Journal of Quantitive Linguistics . Cyril Labbé (son) and Dominique Labbé (father) claim to have solved the Corneille-Molière riddle in favor of Pierre Corneille with the help of computer-aided lexicometric methods: this was a sensation for the French media. The Labbés method consists in statistically comparing the vocabulary of two large corpora of texts: 34 plays by Pierre Corneille and 32 plays which are traditionally attributed to Molière. The intertextual distance is measured . that is, the lexical proximity of the texts from 0 to 1. Between 0 and 0.2 it is definitely the same author, up to 0.25 the probability is extremely high that it is the same author. Result: 16 to 18 of the comedies, which were previously considered to be works by Molière, show an intertextual distance to Corneille's works of only 0.234. In the opinion of the two researchers, they therefore come with certainty from the pen of Pierre Corneille.

Mathematical methods for the mapping of literary works

Two researchers from the University of Petersburg, Mikhaïl Marusenko and Eléna Radionaova, also used computer-philological methods to examine the works of Corneille and Molière for author assignment. In 2010 they published the article in the Journal of Quantitive Linguistics : Mathematical methods for the assignment of literary works to solve the "Corneille-Molière" problem .

They developed an algorithm with 51 different parameters for parsing the syntax. They compared 13 verse comedies Molière with the work of Corneille. Ten of the comedies of verse that have so far been ascribed to Molière are, according to these investigations, with certainty from the pen of Corneille.

Ongoing response from the academic establishment: Molière is the author of Molière's works

The French university establishment initially reacts to the Corneille thesis by refusing to discourse. Either they are simply kept secret in renowned biographies and editions of works or they are generally described as absurd and unacceptable without even considering the arguments of the proponents. For example, in the prestigious five-volume complete edition of Molière's works, published in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade , editor Georges Couton , the Corneille / Molière problem is simply hushed up. The Corneille specialist Serge Doubrovsky said: "I am not exactly familiar with the theses of Pierre Louÿs and Henry Poulaille, but I admit that I simply do not feel like investigating them more closely because they seem so absurd and unacceptable to me."

The taboo that tacitly lies above the Corneille thesis is made clear by a quote from the latest Corneille biography by André Le Gall, 1997:

La question Corneille-Molière ne doit pas être posée. Elle ne le sera donc pas.

The Corneille-Molière question must not be asked. So it won't be asked here either.

However, after the publication of the above-cited computational philology articles, a new dimension was reached. Sorbonne professor George Forestier, a specialist in French theatrical literature of the 17th century ( dix-septiémiste - in France there are chairs for literature separated by centuries) and editor of a complete edition of Molière's works, saw himself compelled to set up a detailed website on the he defends Molière's authorship and seeks to rebut all the counter-arguments put forward: Molière, auteur des oeuvres de Molière.

Molière, patron saint of the Comédie-Française, remains officially untouchable.

The digital turnaround in the 21st century: a challenge for Molière research and literary studies

The digital turnaround opens up further methodological possibilities for literary research. Distant reading allows the comparison of very extensive text corpora . A new philological sub-discipline, computer philology , also called digital philology , is emerging. Currently (2014) more and more literary scholars are experimenting with computer-aided methods. In cooperation with computer scientists, algorithms and data structures are refined to enable more complex text comparisons, such as B. To be able to carry out style analyzes: The new method is called stilometry .

As an application example used z. B. Christof Schöch, Romance studies and computer philologist at the University of Würzburg, the now famous Corneille / Molière controversy, which is a fascinating test case for stylometric procedures. It is necessary to go beyond lexicometric measurements and develop more efficient methods to be able to compare the complex literary styles of different authors with the help of a computer program. In the case of controversial authorship z. B. This method enables a clear assignment:

(1) At its core, stylometry is a process that is less related to stylistics than to literary history: it is not about the description of text properties per se, but about the classification of texts on the basis of text properties.

(2) The Corneille / Molière controversy is undecidable as long as it is not possible to understand the relationship between the signals of authorship, genre and form and to try out or develop methods to differentiate these signals. This is one of the current challenges in stylometry.

At the end of November 2019, Florian Cafiero and Jean-Baptiste Camps will publish their own in-depth stylometric analysis to take the next step in the controversy. Since stilometry is based on statistical procedures that calculate the probabilities within a system of elements to be compared, the question posed here is not: How closely are the texts of Corneilles and Molière similar? But are Moliere's texts which Corneille's much more similar, other than the texts of contemporary authors? . Therefore, the authors of the study include other French playwrights from the 17th century in their comparison corpus. You face two possible hypotheses that have been put forward in the debate:

(1) Molière provided the material, which Corneille then put into verse. Then similarities in the vocabulary of the pieces ascribed to Molìere would potentially be possible, but other elements such as sentence structure and rhyming words would have to show strong similarity to pieces of Corneille.

(2) Molìere only put his name under pieces that were entirely written by other authors - in this case (among others) Corneille - and thus Molìeres should not have its own "style" (in the sense of stylometry), rather, his pieces would have to resemble those of Corneilles or other possible authors in terms of “style”.

After their analyzes, Cafiero and Camps come to the conclusion:

“Our analysis disproves both theories and concludes that neither P. Corneille nor T. Corneille (and incidentally, nor any of the major authors tested here) could have written the plays signed under the name Molière. Without definitely proving that Molière's works are his own - which only historical evidence could do - disproving these alternative theories strongly substantiates the idea that Molière indeed wrote the masterpieces signed under his name. "

“Our investigation refutes both theses and comes to the conclusion that neither P [ierre] Corneille nor T [homas] Corneille (and, incidentally, just as little of the other well-known authors examined here) could have written the pieces that go under the name Molière were published. Although it is not irrefutably proven that Molière's pieces originate from his own pen - only historical evidence could provide that - the refutation of these alternative theories essentially corroborates the idea that Molière actually wrote the masterpieces published under his name. "

- Florian Cafiero, Jean-Baptiste Camps : Why Molière most likely did write his plays

According to the current state of affairs, it is still possible that someone other than Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, alias Molière, wrote the plays published under this name; however, it does not seem very likely that it could have been one of the Corneille brothers (or both).

literature

• Denis Boissier: L'affaire Molière. La grande supercherie littéraire (The great literary hoax). Jean-Cyrille Godefroy, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 .

• Jean-Paul Goujon, Jean-Jacques Lefrère: Ôte-moi d'un doute ... L'énigme Corneille - Molière (Take my doubt ... The Corneille - Molière riddle). Fayard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 .

• Cyril Labbé, Dominique Labbé: Inter-textual distance and autorship attribution. Corneille and Molière. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics. 8-3, December 2001, pp. 213-231.

• Dominique Labbé: Corneille dans l'ombre de Molière. Histoire d'une découverte (Corneille in the shadow of Molière. The story of a discovery). Les Impressions Nouvelles, Paris / Bruxelles 2003, ISBN 2-906131-65-2 .

• Dominique Labbé: Si deux et deux font quatre, Molière n'a pas écrit Dom Juan (If two and two are four, then Molière Dom Juan did not write). Max Milo, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-35341-073-6 .

• Pierre Louÿs: L'auteur d'Amphytrion. In: Le Temps. October 16, 1919.

• Mikhaïl Marusenko, Eléna Radionaova: Mathematical Methods for Attributing Literary Works when Solving the “Corneille – Molière” Problem. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics. 17, 2010, pp. 30-54, doi : 10.1080 / 09296170903395924 .

• Henry Poulaille: Corneille sous le masque de Molière (Corneille under the Molières mask). Grasset, Paris 1957.

• Christof Schoech: Corneille, Molière et les autres. Stylometric analyzes of authorship and genre in French classical theater. In: Philology on the Net. Supplement 7/2014, pp. 130–157.

• Hippolyte Wouters, Christine de Ville de Goyet: Molière ou l'auteur imaginaire. Editions Complexe, 1990, ISBN 2-87027-343-6 .

Web links

• Pro Corneille authorship: L'Affaire Corneille-Molière. Website of the Association cornélienne de France and the writer Denis Boissier

• Pro Molière authorship: Professor Georges Forestier: Molière, auteur des oeuvres de Molière. - Molière is the author of the works of Molière - Website of the Université Paris-Sorbonne under the direction of Professor Georges Forestier, specialist in theatrical literature of the 17th century - Bilingual website: English and French

Footnotes

1. ↑ MOLIÈRE - You don't know. In: Der Spiegel. 24/1957.
2. ↑ Pierre Louys: L'auteur d'Amphytrion. ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Le Temps. October 16, 1919. 
3. ↑ La langue de Molière - The language of Molière
4. ↑ Lila Azam Zanganeh: Not Molière! Ah, nothing is sacred. In: The New York Times. September 6, 2003.
5. ↑ Christof Schöch: Stilometric Experiments, or: Authorship and genre affiliation in the French classical theater. on the website of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
6. ^ Pierre Louÿs: L'auteur d'Amphytrion. ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Le Temps. October 16, 19919 - in the original French text 
7. ^ The register of La Grange 1658–1685 , from the archives of the Comédie-Française
8. ^ Jean-Paul Goujon, Jean-Jacques Lefrère: Ôte-moi d'un doute ... L'énigme Corneille - Molière. Fayard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 , p. 41.
9. ↑ Denis Boissier: L'affaire Molière. La grande supercherie littéraire. Jean-Cyrille Godefroy, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 , pp. 34-38.
10. ^ Henry Poulaille: Corneille sous le masque de Molière. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Grasset, 1957. 
11. ^ Hippolyte Wouters, Christine de Ville de Goyet: Molière ou l'auteur imaginaire. Editions Complexe, 1990, ISBN 2-87027-343-6 .
12. ↑ A satirical play by Hippolyte Wouters: Le destin de Pierre, 1997 ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on the author's website  
13. ↑ Denis Boissier: L'affaire Molière. La grande supercherie littéraire (the great literary hoax). Jean-Cyrille Godefroy, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 .
14. ^ L'Affaire Corneille-Molière. ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
15. ^ Cyril Labbé and Dominique Labbé: Inter-textual distance and autorship attribution. Corneille and Molière. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics. 8-3, December 2001, pp. 213-231.
16. ↑ Dominique Labbé: Corneille dans l'ombre de Molière. Histoire d'une découverte. Les Impressions Nouvelles, Paris / Bruxelles 2003, ISBN 2-906131-65-2 , p. 17.
17. ↑ Mikhail Marusenko, Elena Rodionova: Mathematical Methods for Attributing Literary Works when Solving the "Corneille-Molière" Problem. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics. 17, 2010, pp. 30-54, doi : 10.1080 / 09296170903395924 .
18. ↑ Jean-Paul Goujon, Jean-Jacques Lefrère: Ôte-moi d'un doute ... L'énigme Corneille - Molière (Take away my doubt ... The Corneille - Molière riddle). Fayard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 , pp. 375-377.
19. ↑ quoted from: Jean-Paul Goujon, Jean-Jacques Lefrère: Ôte-moi d'un doute ... L'énigme Corneille - Molière (Take this doubt from me ... The riddle Corneille - Molière). Fayard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 , p. 376.
20. ↑ quoted from: Jean-Paul Goujon, Jean-Jacques Lefrère: Ôte-moi d'un doute ... L'énigme Corneille - Molière (Take this doubt from me ... The riddle Corneille - Molière). Fayard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86553-162-7 , p. 376.
21. ↑ Molière, Œuvres complètes (2 vol.), Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2010 (édition dirigée par Georges Forestier avec Claude Bourqui), ISBN 978-2070128990
22. ^ Georges Forestier: Molière, author des oeuvres de Molière.
23. ↑ Digital Humanities in Literary Studies (Computer Philology) and Yearbook for Computer Philology , on the server of the Technical University of Darmstadt
24. ↑ Dr. Christof Schoech (Uni Würzburg) Stilometric experiments, or: authorship and genre in the French classical theater , Server Uni Würzburg and Christof Schöch: Corneille, Molière et les autres: nouvelles approches stylométriques à la comédie en vers classique ” ( Memento des Originals from 19 August 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , PDF file of a lecture given at the 8th Congress of the Franco-Romanists Association, Leipzig, September 2012, section: «Revolution of the media, evolution of literary studies? »/ Atelier« Révolution des média, évolution des études de lettres? » 
25. ↑ Computer-aided literary genre style - Project management: Dr. Christof Schoch.
26. ^ Christof Schöch: Corneille, Molière et les autres. Stylometric analyzes of authorship and genre in French classical theater. In: Philology on the Net. Supplement 7/2014, p. 140 (pdf-p. 11).
27. ↑ Stylometrische experiments. Authorship and genre in French classical theater. ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Göttingen Philological Forum. 12/2012.  
28. ^ ^{A b} Florian Cafiero, Jean-Baptiste Camps: Why Molière most likely did write his plays. , In: Science Advances , Vol. 5, No. 11, November 27, 2019, last accessed December 9, 2019.