L'Amour Medecin.

Moliere (1622-1673); (Lully, Jean Baptiste (1632-1687)). L'Amour Medecin. Paris: Chez Theodore Girard, 1666. 1666 Priv. Dec 30, 1665; Acheve Jan 15, 1666. Originale edition.

12mo. 5 pl., 59 (i.e. 95)pp. Lacking frontispiece. Signatures: a6, A-D12 (a1, frontispiece). Page 95 incorrectly numbered 59. Comedy-ballet, without the music (by Lully, a contemporary date on title page in ink notes the first performance as Mar 22 1665). Bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet in red morocco, gilt rules. A very handsome copy. Slipcase.

Love-sick Lucinde (truncated) feigns illness. Her father, Sganarelle, brings in one doctor after another but he rejects their cures. Finally, Lucinde's beloved Clitandre, masquerading as a doctor suggests that marriage is the cure for this kind of love-sickness, but Sganarelle wants to keep Lucinde and her dowry for himself. The miserly father is tricked into signing a marriage contract between the two lovers, which he thinks is a only a placebo to raise her spirits.

Commissioned by the King for a royal entertainment at Versailles and first performed on September 15, 1664, l'Amour Medecin is a comedy ballet with music by Lully in three acts. With ballet entries interspresed through the action, entre-actes are described in the text. In his Preface, Moličre cautions that one should not judge the play without seeing it. He also writes that he wrote the ballet in only five days and apologizes that it is only a sketch. He praises Lully's music.

The comedy ballet form was in part created by Moliere himself along with the ballet teacher and theorist Pierre Beauchamps. For this form, the ballet entries themselves had a dramatic structure (in contrast to the early ballets du cour, where the entries were metaphorical not dramatic). Moliere believed that ballets were comedies without words. In the case of this ballet comedy, music and dance are the greatest doctors.

The plot of the play in which a number of quack doctors attempt to cure a love-sick patient is probably based on Charles Sorel's novel Palais d'Angelie (1622?). The play is now chiefly remembered for its devastating satire on physicians and has often been referred to as Les Médecins. The enduring play was produced three times in 1665 at Versailles, 27 times in Paris and from 1680 when the Comedie Francaise was established 274 times until 1900.

References: Guibert, A.J. Moliere, p. 157; Lacroix, P. Bib. moliéresque, 11; Tchemerzine VIII, p309. OCLC locations: UCLA; Yale; Harvard, Oxford.

The comedy-ballet form was in part created by Molière himself along with the ballet teacher and theorist Pierre Beauchamps.
Love-sick Lucinde feigns illness. Her father, Sganarelle, brings in one doctor after another, but he rejects their cures. Finally, Lucinde's beloved Clitandre, masquerading as a doctor, suggests that marriage is the cure for this kind of love-sickness, but Sganarelle wants to keep Lucinde and her dowry for himself. The miserly father is tricked into signing a marriage contract between the two lovers, which he thinks is a only a placebo to raise her spirits

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