Pierre Marivaux

Pierre Marivaux was a French novelist and dramatist, considered one of the most important French playwrights of the eighteenth 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.” The early 1720s were very important for Marivaux; he wrote a comedy (now mostly lost) called L’AMOUR ET LA VERITE, another comedy, ARLEQUIN POLI POUR L’AMOUR, and an unsuccessful tragedy, ANNIBAL (printed 1737). Marivaux wrote between thirty and forty plays, the best of which are the SURPRISE DE L’AMOUR (1722), the TRIOMPHE DE PLUTUS (1728), JEU DE L’AMOUR ET DU HASARD (1730), LES FAUSSES CONFIDENCE (1737), all produced at the Italian theatre, and LE LEGS (1736), produced at the French. At intervals, he returned to journalism: a periodical publication called "L'Indigent Philosophe" appeared in 1727, and another called "Le Cabinet du Philosophe" in 1734. In 1731 Marivaux published the first two parts of his great novel, “Marianne.” The eleven parts appeared at intervals over the next eleven years, but the novel was never finished. In 1735 another novel, “Le Paysan Parvenu,” was begun, but this also was left unfinished. Marivaux was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1742. For the next twenty years, he contributed occasionally to the 'Mercure," wrote plays and reflections (which were seldom of much worth), and so forth. Marivaux' play LE TRIOMPHE DE L’AMOUR (1732) was filmed in English in 2001 as “The Triumph of Love,” starring Mira Sorvino, Ben Kingsley, and Fiona Shaw. It is, so far, the only one of Marivaux' plays to ever be filmed in English (there have been many French film and television adaptations of his plays). The film received modestly favorable reviews, but was not a box-office success. A 1997 musical stage adaptation had a brief Broadway run. In the French film “L'Esquive” (2003), directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, Arab-French adolescents in a Paris suburb prepare and perform Marivaux' play LE JEU DE L’AMOUR ET DU HASARD.