Molière po nipuańsku, czyli o nieobecności Mizantropa na scenach staropolskich
Molière in Nipu, or the Absence of The Misanthrope on Old Polish Stages

Summary/Abstract: This article seeks to explain why the reception of The Misanthrope in Polish literature and theater began so late. The author analyzes the first two translations of short excerpts from this comedy—by Franciszek Zabłocki (1774) and Ignacy Krasicki (1803)—which are included in the appendix. In doing so, he refers to the entire literary output of both poets. He puts forward the argument that the play’s sophisticated form and subject matter were among the reasons why The Misanthrope met with little interest in the first stage of the Polish reception of Molière. His interpretation of the play combinesan analysis of the Jansenist context of The Misanthrope with a reflection on Molière’s way of connecting the categories of comicality and metatheatricality. The juxtapo- sition of these two perspectives leads to the presentation of the title character as a rebel figure. The author also indicates 17th- and 18th-century Polish dramatic texts that correspond in some way with Molière’s comedy. He emphasizes the differences in the development of the Polish and French performance traditions, arguing that the Old Polish theater culture did not leave room for assimilating high comedy, and that the characterological ambiguity of Alceste made him an unsuitable protagonist from the point of view of Polish Enlightenment playwrights, who aimed to exhort the society to moral improvement. The article combines the research perspectives of literary and theater history, also using theoretical and methodological tools from translation studies, drama studies, and the history of ideas.

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