Manzoni e Molière. Tre occorrenze

Abstract

After a short introduction on the relationship between the two writers, the study focuses on three references which indicate how Molière was also employed in the philosophical reflection of Manzoni. The allusion to the Tartuffe, which we encounter in the Twenty-Fifth Chapter of The Betrothed, allows us to understand how, through the portrait of donna Prassede, Manzoni touched a key point, precious to Nicole and Bossuet, and proposed most recently by La Mennais, which is about the limitations and passionate distortions that even the believers (for which Manzoni means the catholic ones in particular) are not immune to. The mention of the Mariage forcé, which emerges from the long letter to Cousin of 1829-1830, serves, on the other hand, a role in Manzoni’s criticism of the excessive concessions to the skepticism by Descartes and Cousin, where he opposes to their false reasoning the force of common sense embodied by Sganarello. The citation of the Femmes savantes, contained in the draft of a letter of February 1832 to Edmond de Cazalès, is used, finally, to expose the anti-religious attitude of the Eighteenth-Century philosophy, from the perspective of a much higher and more inclusive concept of reason, like the one proposed by the “Christian Philosophy” of La Mennais.