Moliaere and Plurality: Decomposition of the Classicist Self

Jacques Lacan’s comments on Le Misanthrope focus on the inauthenticity of any unified discourse (173-75), which is also Moliere’s concern in that play, though he used different terms. Moliere does not subscribe to the myth of the classicist subject, a subject characterized by a theoretically universal - and universalizable - ability to produce and consume true, impersonal language. The ineluctability of pluralism within the individual, as well as among people and sub-cultures, is a fundamental theme of Molieresque comedy, and is particularly important in the plays studied here. The critical study of discourses which has flourished in recent criticism and theory has not only a legitimate object of study, but also a precursor and ally in Moliere.