[page 182] Moliere stated that

the purpose of comedy is to correct men's vices, . . . and nothing reforms the majority of men better than the portrayal of their faults. To expose vices to everyone's laughter is to deal them a mighty blow. People easily endure reproofs, but they cannot at all endure being made fun of. People have no objection to being considered wicked, but they are not willing to be considered ridiculous.(46)

Moliere believed, or at least claimed to believe, that he was trying to correct the vices of people in his comic depictions of their vices. He presented these vices before a theatrical backdrop of classical young lovers. In so doing he could readily point out the vice that needed correction before his society could experience that sense of regain, of reestablished equilibrium, of resurrection into a fully mature society based on mutuality. Moliere then, whether he realized it or not, was presenting his vision of the ideal society. This society was premised on a family that operates in a mutual exchange of love and is freed from the control of either barefaced vice or vice masquerading as virtue. This loving society may only just barely escape the darkness of evil and collapse of loving relationships by a miraculous event beyond human control, but it presupposes a hopeful future that includes everyone who wants to be in that future loving family/society/community. Whether on purpose or not Moliere's resurrected society potentially is a significant adumbration of the future beloved community of God.

The plays of Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) raised the art of comedy in 17th century France to that of tragedy and provided some of the greatest plays in the classic (or perhaps the Neo-Classic) historical theatrical repertory.

Based on the oeuvre of his work I have alleged that for Moliere anything that destroys mutuality of relationship may rightly be called sin and that which returns the world to right relationship may be termed grace. Sin therefore is anything that leads to distorted or broken family or societal relationships.

[page 183] A Concluding Summary:

In this paper the theological issues of sin, grace, finitude, mutuality and future community were identified as central issues of the dramatic comedy tradition of Moliere as reflected in representative scripts from his oeuvre, and representative theories of dramatic comedy which suggest themselves as applicable to his work. This was accomplished through an analysis of several significant historic theories of comedy, analysis and criticism of the dramatic comedies of Moliere, and developing and applying a relational theology of mutuality as suggested by philosophers and theologians John Macmurray, Martin Buber and John Macquarrie.

From that process I have asserted that dramatic comedy views sin as any human action or attitude that throws society out of balance, and which if allowed to go unchecked, would destroy that society. Sin in Moliere's dramatic comedy is most often seen in relational terms as that which destroys mutuality between characters and does not allow the characters, and therefore society at large, to become more fully human. His version of Dramatic comedy is constantly revealing humans in their finite condition as what we are rather than what we claim to be.(47) Eugene Peterson, in his book of reflections on the life of David, suggests an important understanding regarding characters and storytelling that is applicable to our relationship to the characters of Moliere's comedy.

Throughout my childhood, in my mother's telling of the story, I became David. I was always David. I'm still David. It's the intent and skill of this scriptural storyteller to turn everyone who reads or hears the story into realizing something essentially Davidic about him- or herself.(48)

Roger Scruton, in "Laughter," suggests that what causes the laughter of the audience at character's pretensions and actions is a recognition of their own implication in those attitudes [page 184] and actions. We are in effect laughing at ourselves as we laugh at them.(49) This allows us as audience members to experience the grace that can come with laughter that the particular character in the play may or may not accept or experience. Even Moliere's form of comedy has its graceful qualities and possibilities. After all, beyond its criticism lies the positive desire to cause positive change by correcting the characters' and the audience members' vices. Moliere's comedy thus reveals us in our distorted incompleteness, our "brokenness," our sinful and limited finiteness. Laughter is often the mirror, whip and gift that reveals, castigates and allows for transformation of the characters, and us as we see ourselves revealed in the characters of his dramatic comedy.

Comedic Laughter And Grace:

Laughter thus is one of the means of grace dramatic comedy offers to the characters in the play and to the audience who watches, identifies with, and responds to the characters. By our laughter we join others in a corporate response in which we can acknowledge those sins that alienate us from others. By choosing to accept laughter as a means of grace, we can become more critical of our own sins at the same time we become more tolerant and forgiving of the sins of others. Comedy is thus both criticism and understandingly graceful.

Comedy is always jarring us with the evidence that we are no better than other people, and always comforting us with the knowledge that most other people are no better than we are. It makes us more critical but it leaves us more tolerant.(50)

Comedic Structure And Grace:

Moliere's dramatic comedy also provides for and offers grace in its structure. The chiasmic U-shaped structure(51) most often used in dramatic comedy provides for the offending [page 185] party's transformation and welcome re-entry into the society that has been threatened or offended by that character's attitudes and actions. There is a strong tendancy to offer grace and acceptance to everyone who is willing to accept it through the structural statement of dramatic comedy. The only characters who are excluded at the final curtain are those characters who actively reject the final rebalanced or resurrected society, and they are often entreated to a peace in the "virtual future"(52) of the comedy.

Comedic Vision And Grace: An Eschatology Of Hope:

Moliere's version of dramatic comedy is not just a light humorous play that happens to have a happy ending. It is, in the very vision and fabric of the comedy, "a way of surveying life so that happy endings must prevail."(53) This fortunate happy ending, most often brought about by "factors . . . beyond human knowledge and control"(54) may be understood theologically as the miraculous intervention of God on humanity's behalf. The spirit and structure of Moliere's dramatic comedy seem to demand a hope-filled inclusive eschatology in which everyone is invited to the final happy ending. Only those who actively refuse that rebalanced or resurrected community are not present, and hope is often held out for even them.

This final community is seen as a rebalanced society, and even though we know that its "virtual future"(55) will lead to further repetitions of the cycle, for a moment frozen in time we can experience community in microcosm as it ought to be. This final community is often seen as an ideal community in that, however fleetingly, it is based on love and mutuality of persons. In that respect such a community may represent (and in any given production even may be) an adumbration of that community of God that is among us, and not yet among us in its fullness.

Endnotes

1. Alan Reynolds Thompson, The Anatomy of Drama (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1942) 203, rpt. by Philip G. Hill in The Living Art: and Introduction to Theatre and Drama, (San Francisco, Rinehart Press) 348.
2. L. J. Potts, "The Subject Matter of Comedy," (1950) rpt. in Comedy: Meaning and Form, ed. with intro. Robert W. Corrigan (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1965) 199.
3. Potts 202.
4. Benjamin Lehmann, "Comedy and Laughter," University of California Publications: English Studies (1954) 10, rpt. in Comedy: Meaning and Form, ed. with intro. Robert Corrigan (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1965) 164.
5. Francis M. Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961) 3-23.
6. Cornford 13.
7. Cornford 13.
8. R. W. Herzel, The Original Casting of Moliere's Plays (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1981) 42-68.
9. Martin Grotjahn, Beyond Laughter: Humor and the Subconscious (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1957) 260-61.
10. Ludwig Jekels, "On The Psychology of Comedy," Selected Papers, trans. I. Jarosy (New York: International Universities Press, 1952) 97.
11. Grotjahn 260.
12. Grotjahn 261.
13. Jekels 100.
14. Grotjahn 261.
15. Henri Bergson, "Laughter," in Comedy, ed., intro. and append. Wylie Sypher (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1956) 118-127.
16. Bergson 121-122.
17. Bergson 121.
18. Jekels, 104.
19. Jekels, 104.
20. Lehmann 167.
21. Christopher Fry, "Comedy," Vogue (January, 1951) rpt. in Comedy: Meaning and Form, ed. with intro. Robert W. Corrigan (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1965) 15.
22. Northrop Frye, "The Mythos of Spring: Comedy," Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton University Press, 1957) 169.
23. Frye 166.
24. Frye 164.
25. Frye 164.
26. Frye 180-183.
27. Susanne K. Langer, "The Comic Rhythm," Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953) 328.
28. Cornford 12-13.
29. Jekels 97.
30. Langer 328.
31. Potts 202.
32. Grotjahn 261.
33. Fry 15.
34. Cornford 3-23.
35. Lehmann 165.
36. Wylie Sypher, "The Meanings of Comedy" rpt. in Comedy: Meaning and Form, ed. with intro. Robert W. Corrigan (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1965) 37.
37. Sypher 37.
38. Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1977) 58.
39. Buechner 72.
40. Sypher 48.
41. Frye 148.
42. Louis Kronenberger, "Some Prefatory Words on Comedy," rpt. in Comedy: Plays Theory, and Criticism, ed. with intro. Marvin Felheim (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1962) 194.
    
43. Langer 307.
44. Langer 331.
45. Langer 331.
46. Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poqulin), "Preface to Tartuffe," trans. Richard Kerr in Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski, ed. Bernard F. Dukore (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1974) 252.
47. Kronenberger 194.
48. Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthly Spirituality for Everyday Christians, (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997) 17.
49. Roger Scruton, "Laughter," in The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, ed. with intro. John Morreall (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1987) 168.
50. Kronenberger 196.
51. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Publishers, 1983) 168-198.
52. Langer 307.
53. Kronenberger 194.
54. Langer 331.
55. Langer 307.

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