The Imaginary Invalid—Molière

The lungs, the lungs, the lungs.

(AI-generatd image) Argan: “I sometimes have a pain in my heart.” —Toinette: “The lungs”

This last play of Molière’s debuted on February 10, 1673, starring Molière in the title role. Having enjoyed the generous support of Louis XIV for several years, Molière had leaned into spectacular productions in ways that would have seemed inconceivable to the struggling actor who had fled his creditors just twenty-seven years before. In collaboration with Pierre Corneille (who helped with versifying Molière’s prose draft), Jean-Baptiste Lully (music), and Pierre Beauchamp (choreography), Molière created Psyché, a tragédie-ballet based on the story of Cupid and Psyche, that incorporated elaborate machinery, stage settings, actors, singers, dancers, and musicians. Famous as the largest production of the century, Psyché debuted in the Salle des Machines of the Tuileries Palace in Paris, to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668). After only two performances at that venue, it moved to the smaller Théâtre du Palais-Royal, where it ran for over eighty performances and generated enormous profits.

I think it important to keep in mind the modesty of The Imaginary Invalid in comparison with the decadence of Molière’s other entertainments at the time. Set entirely in a sickroom, with a cast of only eleven actors, it does incorporate music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and gypsy dancers choreographed by Pierre Beauchamp, but we have in this play nothing like the flying chariots, wave machines, or choruses of three hundred singers lifted on floating clouds of Psyché.

The play opens with Monsieur Argan grumbling and tallying up his doctor’s bills. He believes he suffers from a number of illnesses that need constant attention and treatment. Doctors and pharmacists visit him regularly. A lot of the humor in this play comes from the hypochondriac’s situation rather than from an intrinsically comic plot. The only plot to speak of involves Argan’s insistence that his daughter marry someone of his own choosing rather than hers. This theme has appeared in a number of Molière’s comedies. Two of the three plays I’ve written about, Tartuffe and The Would-Be Gentleman, have invoked the same subplot. In this version, Argan hopes to reduce his medical bills by having his daughter, Angélique, marry a doctor. Angélique, of course, has other plans.

After a typical comic mixup about whom Argan wants Angelique to marry, the prospective husband, Thomas Diafoirus (the name suggests diarrhea), enters the scene and displays his learning. Molière’s contempt for this dullard leaves no doubt for the audience as to what he thinks about the intelligence of doctors. Thomas’s father, Monsieur Diafoirus, one of Argan’s many doctors, praises young Thomas as follows.

Monsieur Diafoirus: He has never had a very lively imagination, nor that sparkling wit that you notice in some; but it’s by this that I have always augured well of his judgment, a quality required for the exercise of our art. When he was small, he never was what you’d call mischievous or lively. He was always mild, peaceful, and taciturn, never saying a word, and never playing all those little games that we call childish. We had all the trouble in the world in teaching him to read, and he was nine years old before he ever knew his letters. […] But what I like about him above all else, and in which he follows my example, is that he attaches himself blindly to the opinions of our ancients, and he has never been willing to understand or listen to the reasons and experiments in the so-called discoveries of our century, about the circulation of the blood, and other opinions of the same ilk.

Much else happens, of course. Béline, Argan’s doting second wife tries to maneuver him into disinheriting Angélique. Toinette, the clever maidservant, has fun unravelling the schemes of the others. Béralde, Argan’s brother tries to talk some sense into the stubborn hypochondriac. Ultimately, after all the scheming has failed and the various threads resolve themselves, Argan still believes himself sick. So he agrees to let Angélique marry Cléante, the man of her choice, provided that he become a doctor. Cléante does him one better and convinces Argan to become his own doctor. The play ends with a pompous ceremony in which the Faculty of Doctors (who just happened to show up) bestow a medical degree on him.

I enjoyed the scene involving Argan and his brother, Béralde. Argan insists that the doctors know a lot.

Argan: So the doctors don’t know anything, by your account?

Béralde: Oh yes, they do, brother. Most of them know a lot in the humanities, know how to talk in fine Latin, know how to name all the diseases in Greek, define them, and classify them; but as for curing them, that’s what they don’t know how to do at all.

Argan: But you still must agree that on this matter the doctors know more than others.

Béralde: Brother, they know what I’ve told you, which doesn’t cure anyone of very much; and the whole excellence of their art consists of a pompous mumbo-jumbo, a specious chatter, which gives you words for reasons, and promises for results.

Argon: But after all, brother, there are people as wise and as clever as you; and we see that in time of sickness, everyone has recourse to the doctors.

Béralde: That’s a sign of human weakness, and not of the truth of their art.

This goes on for quite a while until finally Béralde suggests to Argan, for the sake of his edification and amusement, that he go see one of Molière’s comedies on the subject. (Remember that Molière plays the role of Argon.) Béralde’s suggestion sends Argan into a rant against Molière, that “impertinent fool.”

Argan: By all that’s holy—or unholy! If I were a doctor, I’d take revenge on his impertinence and when he’s sick, I’d let him die without any help. He could say or do what he likes, I wouldn’t prescribe the slightest little bleeding, the least little enema; and I’d say to him: “Croak! Croak! That’ll teach you another time to make fun of the Faculty of Medicine!”

Reading the back-and-forth between Béralde and Argon about doctors and the medical profession reminded me modern-day quarrels about vaccines. Béralde insists that the body will take care of itself and any doctor’s attempt to help the body do its work does nothing but separate the patient from his money. That criticism contained some truth back before the discovery of germs, antibiotics, vaccines, anesthetics, and all the rest. But things have changed, and doctors can prescribe better treatments than bloodletting, mercury, or trepanation. In Molière’s time, however, the maidservant Toinette, disguised as a doctor, could stride authoritatively into the room, and overrule all the other doctors’ diagnoses convincingly.

Toinette: They’re all ignoramuses: it’s in the lungs that you’re sick.

Argan: The lungs?

Toinette: Yes. What do you feel?

Argan: From time to time I have headaches.

Toinette: Precisely, the lungs.

Argan: It seems to me sometimes that I have a veil before my eyes.

Toinette: The lungs.

Argan: I sometimes have a pain in my heart.

Toinette: The lungs.

And so on.

Molière had been suffering for several years from tuberculosis (or consumption, as they called it) and he would die from a lung hemorrhage after a performance of this play, so he had presumably heard a lot about lungs for a while. He probably thought of a diagnosis of “the lungs” as code for “I have no idea.”

Molière has ridiculed doctors in other plays, but the jabs in this one seem particularly pointed. The doctors hover around Argan, offering their explanations in technical language (think of how every technician in any field lays on the jargon when explaining why your bill is so high). Toinette fools Argan into believing her by the same trickery that the doctors use. And the degree ceremony in the final act makes it clear that entry into the medical profession requires only a facility with phony Latin.

Though Molière had suffered noticeably from a cough for a long time, he had still been able to perform some fairly strenuous roles and maintain an incredibly busy and productive schedule throughout. It came as a surprise to everyone, therefore, when at the end of the fourth evening’s performance, during the farcical ceremony, Molière had a convulsion that several people in the audience noticed. He tried to conceal it with a forced laugh and finished the play. But afterwards, he went home and his lungs started hemorrhaging. He died that same night.

Leaving Molière behind makes me a little sad. I have come to appreciate him for his unquestioning sacrifice of everything for his art, and for his fearless and rollicking ridicule of pomposity, greed, and duplicity wherever he saw it. Lacking success in the high art of tragedy, he instead elevated satire into its own high art. Mikhail Bulgakov saw in Molière a kindred impish spirit, thumbing his nose at the powerful forces who would silence his laughter. So next week I will tackle Bulgakov’s satiric masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

§ § §

Thank you for reading these reflections on literature. I learn as I go, so the opinions I offer should carry no authority. Part of the motivation for this project comes from having spent many years in the classroom, forcing freshmen students to read difficult works of classical philosophy without having much background in philosophy. I enjoyed reading their journals as they struggled to make sense of the readings. I enjoyed watching their efforts improve over the semester. I also envied them for getting that sort of experience (an experience that more than a few resented). None of them came away from those classes with a professional’s grasp of philosophy, but those who made the effort had more confidence that they could tackle other things they never would have attempted before. So you might think of these reflections as the homework journal of a determined philosophy major in a literature class. I hope that seeing how much I enjoy the struggle will inspire you to open that great book you’ve always thought of as too daunting.

Books I mentioned or learned from in this reflection.

Molière: Comedies, translated by Donald M. Frame (Franklin Library)

Molière: A Theatrical Life, by Virginia Scott

The Life of Monsieur Molière: A Portrait, by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Mirra Ginsburg

Also interesting might be

Jean-Baptiste Lully: Psyché, (CD) performed by the Boston Early Music Festival and Orchestra, conducted by Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs

For next week

The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

I also plan to read the following biography of Bulgakov,

Mikhail Bulgkov: The Life and Times, by Marietta Chudakova, translated by Huw Davies