Moliere and the French Revolution

FAIN: FA-51683-05

Mechele Leon
University of Kansas, Lawrence (Lawrence, KS 66045-7505)

I am requesting an NEH fellowship to support a twelve-month leave to prepare my book manuscript for publication. "Molière and the French Revolution" explores a key moment in the history of the reception of France's premier seventeenth-century comic playwright. It investigates the processes of revalorization by which Molière gained his eminent status in French cultural history, providing greater understanding of how a nation's cultural inheritance survives changing political and social landscapes.

Media Coverage

(Review)
Author(s): Michael Shifflet
Publication: Theatre Journal 62.4
Date: 12/1/2010
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/theatre_journal/v062/62.4.index.html

Associated Products

Moliere, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife (Book)
Title: Moliere, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife
Author: Mechele Leon
Abstract: From 1680 until the French Revolution, when legislation abolished restrictions on theatrical enterprise, a single theatre held sole proprietorship of Molière’s works. After 1791, his plays were performed in new theatres all over Paris by new actors, before audiences new to his works. Both his plays and his image took on new dimensions. In Molière, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife, Mechele Leon convincingly demonstrates how revolutionaries challenged the ties that bound this preeminent seventeenth-century comic playwright to the Old Regime and provided him with a place of honor in the nation’s new cultural memory.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: http://www.uiowapress.org/books/2009-fall/leon.htm
Primary URL Description: University of Iowa Press
Secondary URL: http://www.amazon.com/Moliere-Revolution-Theatrical-Afterlife-Studies/dp/158729821X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324696707&sr=8-1
Secondary URL Description: Amazon.com
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 1-58729-821-X

Prizes

Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre
Date: 11/17/2010
Organization: American Society for Theatre Research

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