Deus ex Machina

apò mēkhanês theós

for Stephane

The deus ex machina was a dramatic technique invented by Aeschylus (possibly in the play The Eumenides) and vigorously employed by Euripides (and others) in play after play. Although it refers in general to the entrance or the exit of a god by means of a stage machine called a crane, it rapidly came to be used as a reference to a dramatic moment on stage when there is absolutely no possibility for a happy resolution and the protagonist seems to be doomed, when suddenly –and its always suddenly so that we don’t get much time to actually think through the logic of it – a god (or an equivalency) arrives via the aforesaid machine to miraculously sort everything out, impose a happy ending (at least for the “good guys”) and allow for closure on the stage.

The most immediate and visceral vision of the deus ex machine takes place in Mary Renault’s brilliant historical novel: The Mask of Apollo. Nikeratos is a young actor in the Athens of Plato (after the Peloponnesian War) who finds himself about to make an entrance as Apollo. He grasps his silver bow, leans into his harness in the arc of flight and soars out above the stage propelled by the crane. He begins his speech, timed to his descent, when he feels a twang in the rope suspending him and realizes that he is in trouble – someone has, in fact, tampered with his rope. At first, he continues with his lines automatically while his brain races for a way out of his predicament. Further twangs make it clear that there is only one, he must call out to Mikon (the operator of the crane) to let him down to the orchestra immediately. But as the idea forms, he realizes how ridiculous he will look to the audience – a terrified god Apollo. He is a young and ambitious actor following in his father’s professional footsteps. Also, he is wearing an antique mask of Apollo and therefore feels that he owes something to the god. Putting his fears aside he throws himself into the role and gives a magnificent performance. By this time, the audience has figured out what is going on and are beginning to shout out warnings. He silences them with some “god-like” ad-libs and manages to conclude his speech just as he touches down and the rope suspending him parts its final strand (an extra deus ex machine for anyone who missed the point). Nikeratos’ career is well and truly launched.

There are also many famous examples of this “figura” outside of Greek theatre. From the arrival of Jupiter in Cymbeline, to the appearance of the naval officer at the end of the Lord of the Flies, the Duke’s conversion in As You Like It to the ending of Tartuffe by Moliere. Critics from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Nietzsche and beyond have thoroughly enjoyed criticizing the technique as simply evidence of bad plotting or a paucity of imagination. Said the New Comedy poet Antiphanes:

when they don't know what to say

and have completely given up on the play

just like a finger they lift the machine

and the spectators are satisfied.

Aristophanes had Euripides, the principal employer of the ploy, hoisted into one of his comedies by just such a machine. Modern audiences who are subjected to such an ending usually react with superior dismissal and disdain. So here is a technique that is ancient and modern, classic and disreputable.

As mentioned above, one of the most famous usages of the metaphorical deus ex machine is in Moliere’s Tartuffe.  Our upper middle-class foil, named Orgon, is bamboozled by the religious predator Tartuffe into foolishly handing over his wealth, property and possibly his wife into the hands of the brilliant holy roller. Easy parallels can be drawn with American televangelists and right-wing political grifters, but that would be beside the point. The play was presented to a highly appreciative King Louis XIV at Versailles as part of a larger multi-day fete and then was immediately banned. It is important to understand that the play that Louis saw in 1664 and banned was not the play that we have today – but more of that later.

We must begin by establishing, as best we can, the “relationship” between Moliere(Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) and Louis the XIV (known variously as Louis Dieudonné, Louis the Great and Le Roi de Soleil). Louis was the absolute monarch of France (having grown up under the thumb of his mother, Anne of Austria and her first minister Cardinal Mazarin) and exercised that power to absolutely subdue an unruly nobility and pretty much everyone else (with the possible exception of his doctors who seem to have been able to poison and murder the sick at will). Louis was inordinately fond of himself (as he writes)and had chosen the emblem of the sun as his own personal motif:

which according to the rules of art is the most noble of all, and which by virtue of its uniqueness, by the brilliance that surrounds it, by the light that it imparts to the other stars that make up a kind of court; by its equal and just sharing of that same light to the various regions of the world; by the good it does in all places, endlessly producing on all sides life, joy and activity; by its relentless movement, while it appears nevertheless always still; by that constant and invariable course, from which it never deviates or turns away, is assuredly the most vibrant and the most beautiful image of a great monarch.  (Wilkinson, 150)

Throughout Versailles and elsewhere, Louis had himself visually represented as Apollo and his family members as the other appropriate fellow members of the family of the gods.

Beside his status as ruler and possible deity, Louis had another defining attribute. He was an extraordinary patron of every kind of art. As historian John Palmer says, “[h]e was, perhaps, the most splendid patron of literature who ever ruled a modern State. All the arts ministered to his pleasure or to the glory of France.” (Palmer, 162) The arts were for Louis a mirror that reflected back his glory on himself, or, represented for him examples of his greatness as a patron.

All this was of great importance to Moliere. Moliere’s comedies were wildly popular but they made him many enemies. He discovered that it was endlessly amusing for the public (and for the King, never forget the King) when he chose a particular genre of the public persona – doctors, jumped up marquises, les preciouses, misers, hypochondriacs, the bourgeois, husbands, wives, the list could be endless – and portrayed them on stage in all their self-absorbed absurdity. He also discovered that when he portrayed a certain generic “type” (any type), individual members of the audience would instantly recognize themselves as being portrayed on stage and assume that Moliere was attacking them personally. This, too he could use to create comic effect.

To do all this successfully, profitably and safely within the cloister of the theatrical/religious/nobility that he was surrounded with, required two things: artistic genius and protection. Moliere had the genius and he relied on Louis for the protection. After all, that’s what patrons were for. Very few other playwrights (like Shakespeare) have had Moliere’s knowledge of the stage and its possibilities from every perspective: actor, manager, director and playwright. That, and the favour of the king, made for Moliere’s success and survival. None of this is very surprising – it is part of the mythology of Moliere: the artist who, with the King at his back, could take on the whole court, the man who ate chicken with the King (wildly improbable but lots of fun) and who thumbed his nose at everyone else. What may surprise is the price that Moliere paid for his royal endorsement:

The author of Le Misanthrope was obliged to spend largely of the years of his prime inorganizing entertainments for the Court, which he should have been free to employ in other ways. The King overworked and misused his genius with the same unconscious insolence, which, towards the end of his reign, culminated in the reduction of Racine to an ignoble silence. (Palmer,165-6)

And Corneille died in poverty. In fact, the reason that Louis was so pre-occupied with Moliere’s work as writer/director/producer of various combination opera/ballets/entertainments like Les Facheux, (often in co-operation with Lully), was that the King enormously prized this kind of work by Moliere over the comedies that we are familiar with. When the king thought of Moliere it was as the “author of Les Amants Magnifiques, rather than Moliere author of Le Misanthrope.” (Palmer,165) And there are several reasons for this. These works were easy to comprehend, focused their praise on the Sun King and they allowed, indeed insisted on, courtly participation. They fulfilled the same purpose that the Masques of Inigo Jones did for James I of England, glorifying the power of the king and, at the same time, lessening the stature of the artist.

But before we get too weighed down by those political realities, let us come back to what one of Moliere’s greatest translators (Donald Frame) has to say about him: “an actor-manager-director-playwright all in one, he knew and loved the stage as few have done, and wrote with it and his play-going public always in mind.” (Frame, ix) Now there is more to this statement than immediately meets the eye. Yes, of course, Moliere could and did write great comic scenes – and he could also borrow great moments from his rivals, the Italian Comedians. He could also structure his plays, manage his company, outwit his enemies and manipulate an egotistical, absolute monarch. But there is even more to it than that. While the King’s favour was of paramount importance in defending Moliere against his many enemies, Moliere was also brilliant in defending himself through his own knowledge of how the theatre, not just the plays but the theatre as a whole, worked.

Consider, for instance, how he defended himself within the text of L’Impromtu du Versailles, 1663. He made it absolutely clear that in the form of his comic creations, he was not creating individual characters but rather types. So, if anyone found that the type represented resembled them self, then the fault lay not in the author but in them. Take, for instance the character of Sganarelle in The Imaginary Cuckold. During a performance of the play a “certain Bourgeois raised a great outcry in the hall.” He claimed that Moliere had based the character of Sganarelle on him in order to “put him to public ridicule. ”Naturally, this interruption to the play was as amusing to the audience as the play itself. (Bulgakov,119) Or the spectacle of opening night of Les Précieuses ridicules. Moliere knew, well so did everyone who went to the theatre in that time, that the stage would be crowded with audience members – for that was the custom of the time – and that those audience members would be the very marquises that the play was written to mock. As the play unfolded the audience in the parterre roared with laughter and pointed at the audience members trapped on the stage for the amusement of the crowd. (Bulgakov, 119)

Even the great King himself was not immune, although not always at Moliere’s hands. The King prided himself on his dancing and loved performing for the court. In the production of Les Amants Magnifiques the King danced the parts of Neptune and Apollo. He was the recipient of enormous amounts of praise for his art and skill except that after a few days he gave indications that he wanted all the praise to end immediately. It seems that he had read a new play by Racine, Britannicus, in which he read the lines:

He struts in plays before the Romans,

Squandering his voice in the theatre,

Reciting verses and demandingpraise,

While soldiers compel the audience to applaud.

Louis was not amused. (Bulgakov, 210)

And so, we come to Tartuffe. In 1664 the play was presented to the King at Versailles as part of a series of entertainments lasting over several days. The play was already much anticipated and discussed since it was known that it dealt with the hottest topic of the day – religious controversy. It was a subject of court politics before it had even been seen on the stage. Some felt that the play was presented by Louis to outrage his mother (who was a strong supporter of the Jansenists) while others thought it was a present to his newest mistress, Louise de la Valliere. In any case it was presented and it was reported that Louis loved it. Then he banned it. Once again there are various stories about the forces behind the forbidding of a public performance of the play that was bound to make Moliere a fortune at the box office. Whatever the truth of these suppositions, Louis himself made his reasons clear in the official protocol to the Versailles fete:

This evening His Majesty had a comedy entitled Tartuffe performed which the Sieur de Moliere had written against the hypocrites. Although His Majesty found it extremely diverting, he felt that there was so great a resemblance between those whom a sincere devotion put in the way of heaven and those whom a vain ostentation of good works did not prevent from achieving bad ones, that in his extreme care for matters pertaining to religion he could not permit this resemblance between vice and virtue, which might be mistaken one for the other; and although he did not doubt the good intentions of the author, he prohibited the public performance of the play and deprived himself of this pleasure in order that it should not be abused by others who night be less capable of a just discrimination.” (my emphasis) (Wilkinson, 171)

In other words, only Louis XIV had the (godlike) wisdom to discriminate between the truly religious and the vain hypocrites – among which he presumably numbered Tartuffe. This is not a terribly flattering judgment on the religious of the time, but what we are concerned with here is the banning of the play and the super-human discernment of the monarch. The play remained, in essence, banned for 5 years and there has been endless discussion and theorizing about what the original version consisted of and what specific changes were made to enable a public performance. In all likelihood the simple passage of time probably played a large part in the process, but there are some other things that we can be relatively sure of.

Moliere’s other comedies that focused on mocking a particular class or type of individual were mostly written in three acts and ended with the central character left completely defeated, thwarted and embarrassed – and usually by his own means. It would make complete sense, then, to presuppose that the original Tartuffe was

essentially the first three acts of the play that we have minus the long section of moralizing on the part of Cleante. Orgon, by reason of his gullible stupidity ,so beautifully portrayed by Moliere, deserves every bit of the destruction he receives at the end of Act III (although his family does not). There is absolutely no reason that Tartuffe need be caught out – he is magnificently successful as written, and the play would have followed the pattern of Moliere’s other three act comedies. This is the true face of comedy, it is brutal and sardonic, it is the face of comedy that laughs at Moliere as he plays the role of Sganarelle or Argan, and as he plays Orgon. The comedy is finished with him hoisted by his own petard.

Therefore, we can assume that what has been added to assuage the king (and Moliere’s enemies – although that never worked)) and to help his audience achieve something close to Louis’ godlike understanding of the difference between a saint and a grifter, are the following: Cleante’s lengthy oration on that very subject – just to clarify things for the mere mortals in the audience – and Acts IV and V. It is the purpose of Act V that we must examine more closely.

It can be presumed that Act V is there principally to save Orgon. Indeed, I have heard it argued that Act V is there to prevent the play from becoming a tragedy, as if Orgon were some kind of a victim. This is another face of comedy, the comedy of the happy ending, in which serenity is achieved by the knowledge that the deus ex machina is always there to bail us out and rescue us from our own stupidity – whether it be succumbing to a religious fraud, a telephone scam or a political swindle. But as Moliere shows us, it is often a false god, and Moliere shows us its face in a who laughs last, laughs best jest. 

Let us remember what happens in Act V. Orgon is doomed, Tartuffe has all the money, the property and the evidence of Orgon’s possible treason – he has all thecards and proceeds to play them by sending an ironically name Mr. Loyale to inform Orgon and his family that they are to vacate to property of Tartuffe. Then Orgon learns that Tartuffe (using some purloined letters foolishly hidden by Orgon) has denounced Orgon as a traitor to the King. As one and all prepare to flee Tartuffe triumphantly arrives with an Officer to arrest Orgon. And then, when all is lost, the machine appears:

TARTUFFE.[To the OFFICER] I beg you, sir, to free me from this clamour, and be pleased to do as you are ordered.

OFFICER. Yes, ’tis certainly delaying the execution too long. You invite me to fulfil it apropos; and to execute my order, follow me immediately to the prison which we are to allot you for your habitation.

TARTUFFE. Who? I, sir?

OFFICER. Yes, you.

TARTUFFE. Why to prison, pray?

OFFICER. You are not the person I shall give an account to. [To ORGON] Do you, sir, compose yourself after so warm a surprise. We live under a prince who is an enemy to fraud, a prince whose eyes penetrate into the heart, and whom all the art of impostors can’t deceive. His great soul is furnished with a fine discernment, and always takes things in a right light; there’s nothing gets too much footing by surprise, and his solid reason falls into no excess. He bestows lasting glory of men of worth, but he dispenses his favours without blindness, and his love for the sincere does not foreclose his heart against the horror that’s due to those that are otherwise. Even this person was not able to surprise him, and we find he keeps clear of the most subtle snares. He soon pierced through all the baseness contained within his heart. Coming to accuse you, he betrayed himself; and by a just stroke of divine judgment, he discovered himself to be a notorious rogue, of whom His Majesty had received information under another name, the whole detail of whose horrid crimes is long enough to fill volumes of histories. This monarch, in a word, detesting his ingratitude and undutifulness to you, to his other confusions hath added the following, and hath sent me under his direction only to see how far his assurance would carry him and to oblige him to give you full satisfaction. He will moreover that I should strip the traitor of all your papers to which he pretends a right, and give them you. By dint of sovereign power he dissolves the obligation of the contract which gives him your estate, and he pardons moreover this secret offence in which the retreat of your friend involved you; and this recompense he bestows for the zeal he saw you formerly showed in maintaining his rights. To let you see that his heart knows, even when ’tis least expected, how to recompense a good action; that merit with him is never lost, and that he much better remembers good than evil.

(My italics)

The God has descended from the machine and in the person of Louis XIV with his god-like perception and “divine judgement” has saved Orgon at the brink of destruction. Is it any wonder that Louis lifted this ban on this version of the play since the play now dramatically demonstrates that in “his extreme care for matters pertaining to religion” he had clearly discerned both for Orgon and the audience the “resemblance between vice and virtue, which might be mistaken one for the other” and shown the truth. And is it any wonder that critics have ever since complained about the foolishness and facility of the ending? But it’s not quite that simple.

Let us remember that Moliere was writing under the favour of the king that functions here as a god and that all the people around the King were perfectly aware of this power dynamic.  They were also perfectly aware that, even with all his gifts, Louis was far from being a god. Let us also remember what was said about Moliere earlier; “An actor-manager-director-playwright all in one, he knew and loved the stage as few have done, and wrote with it and his play-going public always in mind.” As an all-round man of the theatre he was aware of all the aspects of the staging of his plays – something we often forget. In addition, he was a shrewd judge of audiences and what they would absorb and understand of what they heard and saw on stage.

Here is a drawing of what a performance for the king looked like at Versailles in Moliere’s time. At front row centre is Louis, family and entourage. Aside from the orchestra and attendants (all royal employees) pretty much everyone else sits behind Louis, out of his range of vision. When the Officer makes his proclamation of the god-like status of the Sun King the mocking smiles and rolled eyeballs on the faces of the rest of the audience would be out sight of the King and I am sure that Moliere (not to mention the actor playing the Officer) enjoyed laying it on as thick as they thought they could get away with. The joke, in the end, was on the very human Louis and everyone in the audience was free to enjoy it. Think of Louis, just like Nikeratos, being lowered on to the stage in his wig and mask as Apollo and pronouncing the truth. That, and the fact that Tartuffe ended up making ten times more money than any of his other plays preceding it must have made Moliere very amused indeed. He certainly ended up with the last laugh and may be laughing still.

Postscript

When Moliere died (not on stage but after having collapsed there while playing the Imaginary Invalid) he was refused burial in consecrated ground by the Church because he was an actor. The Church had, of course, buried many actors and their refusal was really based on Tartuffe. There are many apocryphal stories about Moliere’s remains but we will stick to the best. The King, when consulted on the matter of the burial, asked how deep consecrated ground was and when he was told that it was eight feet deep he said, “well bury him nine feet deep”.

Louis never quite “got” a few things. When he was very old the King (who always said how much he prized Moliere – for his ballets) asked the poet Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux“ What will have been the greatest achievement of my reign?” “There can be no doubt, Sire, Moliere,” answered Boileau. “Really,” answered the King, “that buffoon? I wouldn’t have believed it.” (Michael, 175)

In the end a compromise was reached and Moliere was buried in the part of the Churchyard set aside for unbaptized infants. His wife had a stone slab laid on his grave in his memory and she ordered a hundred piles of firewood to the cemetery so that the homeless beggars could warm themselves. “The next winter, which was especially severe, a huge fire was lit on the stone. The slab cracked from the heat and fell apart. Time scattered the pieces.” (Bulgakov, 246) When the people’s commissaires came during the Revolution to retrieve his bones the place of Moliere’s burial was uncertain. I am sure that would have amused him as much as the time that he made Louis a god.

Works Cited

Bulgakov, Mikhail. The Life of Monsieur de Moliere: A Portrait of the Great French Satirist. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970

Michael, Prince of Greece. Louis XIV: The Other Side of the Sun. Trans. By Alan Sheridan. Harper and Row, New York, 1979

Moliere. Trans. Donald M. Frame. Tartuffe and Other Plays. Signet Classics: NY,1987

Palmer, John. Moliere. New York: Brewer and Warren Inc., 1930.

Wilkinson, Josephine. Louis XIV: The Power and the Glory. New York: Pegasus Books,2019

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