Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (; ; 4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist.

Marivaux is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing numerous comedies for the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne of Paris. His most important works are Le Triomphe de l'amour, Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard and Les Fausses Confidences. He also published a number of essays and two important but unfinished novels, La Vie de Marianne and Le Paysan parvenu.

Marivaux is reputed to have been a witty conversationalist, with a somewhat contradictory personality. He was extremely good-natured but fond of saying very severe things, unhesitating in his acceptance of favours (he drew a regular annuity from Claude Adrien Helvétius) but exceedingly touchy if he thought himself in any way slighted. At the same time, he was a great cultivator of sensibility and unsparingly criticized the rising philosophes. Perhaps for this reason, Voltaire became his enemy and often disparaged him. Marivaux's friends included Helvétius, Claudine Guérin de Tencin, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle and even Madame de Pompadour (who allegedly provided him with a pension). Marivaux had one daughter, who became a nun; the duke of Orleans, the regent's successor, furnished her with her dowry.

Works

Plays

  • 1712: Le Père prudent et équitable
  • 1720: L'Amour et la Vérité
  • 1720: Arlequin poli par l'amour (Harlequin's Lesson of Love)
  • 1720: Annibal, his only tragedy
  • 1722: La Surprise de l'amour (The Agreeable Surprise)
  • 1723: La Double Inconstance (Infidelities)
  • 1724: Le Prince travesti
  • 1724: La Fausse Suivante ou Le Fourbe puni (The False Servant)
  • 1724: Le Dénouement imprévu
  • 1725: L'Île des esclaves (Slave Island)
  • 1725: L'Héritier de village
  • 1726: Mahomet second (unfinished prose tragedy)
  • 1727: L'Île de la raison ou Les petits hommes
  • 1727: La Seconde Surprise de l'amour
  • 1728: Le Triomphe de Plutus (Money Makes the World Go Round)
  • 1729: La Nouvelle Colonie lost and then rewritten in 1750 with the title of La Colonie
  • 1730: Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard (The Game of Love and Chance)
  • 1731: La Réunion des Amours
  • 1732: Le Triomphe de l'amour (The Triumph of Love)
  • 1732: Les Serments indiscrets (Careless Vows)
  • 1732: L'École des mères
  • 1733: L'Heureux Stratagème (Successful Strategies)
  • 1734: La Méprise
  • 1734: Le Petit-Maître corrigé
  • 1734: Le Chemin de la fortune
  • 1735: La Mère confidente
  • 1736: Le Legs (The Legacy)
  • 1737: Les Fausses Confidences (The False Confidences)
  • 1738: La Joie imprévue
  • 1739: Les Sincères (The Test)
  • 1740: L'Épreuve
  • 1741: La Commère
  • 1744: La Dispute (A Matter of Dispute)
  • 1746: Le Préjugé vaincu
  • 1750: La Colonie
  • 1750: La Femme fidèle
  • 1757: Félicie
  • 1757: Les Acteurs de bonne foi (The Constant Players)
  • 1761: La Provinciale

Journals and essays

  • 1717–1718: Lettres sur les habitants de Paris
  • Lettres contenant une aventure
  • Pensées sur differents sujets
  • 1721–1724: Le Spectateur français
  • 1726: L'Indigent philosophe
  • 1734: Le Cabinet du philosophe

Novels

  • 1713–1714: Les Effets surprenants de la sympathie
  • 1714: La Voiture embourbée — an "improvised" novel (roman impromptu)
  • 1714: Le Bilboquet
  • 1714: Le Télémaque travesti
  • 1716–1717: L'Homère travesti ou L'Iliade en vers burlesques
  • 1737: Pharsamon ou Les Folies romanesques (Pharsamond, or the New Knight-Errand)

Unfinished novels

  • begun in 1727: La Vie de Marianne (The Life of Marianne)
  • begun in 1735: Le Paysan parvenu (The Upstart Peasant)

Adaptations

Triumph of Love, a 1997 musical stage adaptation of Marivaux's play The Triumph of Love had a brief Broadway run.

Film and television

  • ', directed by Ugo Falena (Italy, 1914, short film, based on the play The Game of Love and Chance)
  • Monsieur Hector, directed by Maurice Cammage (France, 1940, based on the play The Game of Love and Chance)
  • ', directed by Leopoldo Torres Ríos (Argentina, 1944, based on the play The Game of Love and Chance)
  • ', directed by Marcel Bluwal (France, 1967, TV film, based on the play The Game of Love and Chance)
  • ', directed by Marcel Bluwal (France, 1968, TV film, based on the play Double Inconstancy)
  • ', directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt (West Germany, 1978, based on the play La Dispute)
  • ', directed by (France, 1984, based on the play Les Fausses Confidences)
  • La Fausse Suivante, directed by Patrice Chéreau (France, 1985, TV film, based on the play La Fausse Suivante)
  • ', directed by Benoît Jacquot (France, 1995, TV film, based on the novel La Vie de Marianne)
  • False Servant, directed by Benoît Jacquot (France, 2000, based on the play La Fausse Suivante)

Marivaux's play The Triumph of Love (1732) was filmed in English in 2001 as Triumph of Love, starring Mira Sorvino, Ben Kingsley, and Fiona Shaw. It is, so far, the only one of Marivaux's plays ever to be filmed in English. The film received modestly favourable reviews, but was not a box office success.

In the French film L'Esquive (2003), directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, Arab-French adolescents in a Paris suburb prepare and perform Marivaux's play Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard.

References

  • Biography, Bibliography, Analysis, Plot overview (in French)
  • Bibliography, Analysis of L'Ile des esclaves (in French)