The Misanthrope

Oronte reads out a sonnet he is proud of and asks what Alceste makes of it. It is the wrong question to ask the one man in Paris who would sooner lose a friend, or a lawsuit, than soften the truth with flattery. His creed is simple: say what you mean and let the social lubricant go hang, making him a zealot, a bore, and the most honest person in the room, all at once. Then Molière hands him Célimène, a young widow whose charm and cruelty are so fused no one can tell them apart, whom Alceste loves against every principle he owns. The play's genius is its refusal to let him off: his honesty is its own performance, a bid for distinction as vain as the flattery he scorns, and the man who sees through everyone cannot see himself. Written in Alexandrine couplets where every barb lands on the beat, The Misanthrope ends not in the marriage its comedy promises but with a furious man storming off to find a corner of the earth honest enough for him.