[.ca] L'école des femmes (ISBN 2070412466)

Chronique amazon.fr:
De conception traditionnelle, cette collection a le mérite d'aborder l'oeuvre intégrale sous des angles diversifiés. Outre le résumé détaillé des différentes parties et les commentaires composés qui le complètent, chaque ouvrage propose une synthèse littéraire assez riche : il y est question de l'auteur, des personnages, de la genèse et de l'architecture de l'oeuvre mais aussi de ses particularités stylistiques, des réseaux d'intertextualité et des interprétations possibles. Par ailleurs, les documents situés en annexe offrent à l'élève la possibilité de se repérer rapidement dans l'oeuvre : le lexique, l'index thématique et les citations retenues lui permettent de traiter aisément les sujets de dissertation et d'entretien oral. C'est donc une première approche qui a pour but de familiariser le lecteur avec l'oeuvre en question. Elle lui en donne une vision synthétique et lui suggère des pistes de lecture pour l'analyse. À l'inverse, la bibliographie finale invite à enrichir ses connaissances au moyen d'études plus approfondies. --Claire Mazurel

Very amusing Satire.:
I read this play for a French Lit. class and enjoyed Moliere's sense of humor. I laughed out loud as I watched everyone's plans go horribly awry. A great classic social commentary. It centers around one man's obsessive fear of cuckoldry (when a man's wife cheats on him), and the extremes to which he goes to avoid this. He practically emprisons a girl/young woman so that she can be raised properly and will make a faithful and obedient wife when she finally matures. The only problem for me was that it has a lot of references and vocabulary which are out of date and hard for a non-(native)French speaker to understand.

L'ecole des femmes-negative review:
I'm sorry to say that this Moliere play was dissapointing. Not only was it plain boring, yet it was very predictable. Moliere's sense of humor in this book let me down compared to other books such as L'AVARE and LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES, which I highly recommend to read.

A play to enjoy, a message to ponder...:
"L' cole des femmes" is a very well-known comedy written by Molire (1622-1673) in 1662. At first sight, it appears to be the epitome of the classical comedy of mistakes. Despite that, this short play also deals with a topic that was highly controversial during Molire's life, women's education. The author of this book seamlessly incorporates that theme into the plot, making the reader reflect on it even without realizing he is doing that. To start with, I would like to outline the plot of "L' cole des femmes". It is simple, but shows that a play doesn't need to be too complicated in order to entertain. The main character is Arnolphe, an old man who having had lots of affairs with married women, distrust women in general. The strange thing is that in spite of that Arnolphe still wants to get married, provided (of course) that he can find a woman he can trust with his honour. After much pondering, he finds a seemingly perfect solution for his problem: to marry a woman without too much education, so she won't know how to deceive him ("pouser une sotte est pour n'etre point sot"). According to Arnolphe, a dumb woman is a honest woman. Having arrived to that conclusion, he decides to take a young orphan, Agns, under his wing. Arnolphe educates Agns according to his ideas: not too much studying, a lot of sewing and praying. The years go by, and Agns grows into a beautiful but profoundly ignorant young woman. Arnolphe is ready to marry her, but something unexpected happens: a new character appears. That character is Horace, a young and handsome man who falls madly in love with Agns and begins to court her, to Arnolphe's desperation and Agns' happiness. What will happen?. Well, you need to read "L' cole des femmes" in order to know that. What I can tell you, though, is that I really enjoyed reading this play, notwithstanding the fact that there were some words that are no longer used in modern French. That made reading this play a little bit more difficult, although there was an abundance of footpages that explain the meaning of those words perfectly well, something that clarified my doubts. What is more, this edition includes a chronology of Molire's life, and several interesting studies regarding this play, something that helps to reader to understand "L' cole des femmes", and the context in which it was written. On the whole, I think that "L' cole des femmes" is worth the time and effort of reading it. Molire wrote a perfectly good comedy, but he also took a stand regarding what kind of education should be given to women. He did that throughout the story, and also in a phrase said by one of the secondary characters, who says that "Une femme d'esprit peut trahir son devoir; mais il faut, pour le moins, qu'elle ose le vouloir; et la stupide au sien peut manquer d`ordinaire sans en avoir l`envie, et sans penser le faire". I completely agree with that, and I recommend this book as a play to enjoy, but also as a message to ponder... Belen Alcat