Word: harpagon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...tragic hero is blinded, he assumes the grandeur of Oedipus; when a comic hero is blinded, he becomes as ludicrous as a mole. Moliere, the most serious writer of comedy who ever lived, took just such a blind mole and made him the mock hero of The Miser. Harpagon (Robert Symonds) has a singular obsession-money. Like most obsessions, it is not magnificent but malignant. It allows the great 17th century French dramatist to make a central moral point-that a sin is called deadly because it deadens. Harpagon is blind to his children's hope of love, blind...
...than a play, and it stresses what is sheen-deep in Molière's wit rather than what is skinflinty. Still, in a glancing way, the master French comic moralist's point does get made-that a sin is called deadly because it deadens. Mock-Hero Harpagon (Hume Cronyn) is dead to his children's hope of love, dead to his servants' grievances, dead to any generous stirrings of heart or mind. He counts the world well lost for money. Skittering about like a drunken sandpiper, Hume Cronyn is a dizzy delight. His Harpagon...