Moli?re wished to create a counterpart of
_Sganarelle_, the type of ridiculous jealousy, and to delineate
passionate jealousy, its doubts, fears, perplexities and anxieties, and
in this he has succeeded admirably. However noble-minded Don Garcia may
be, there rages within his soul a mean passion which tortures and
degrades him incessantly. When at last he is banished from the presence
of the fair object of his love, he resolves to brave death by devoting
himself to the destruction of her foe; but he is forestalled by his
presumed rival, Don Alphonso, who turns out to be the brother of his
mistress, and she receives him once again and for ever in her favour.
The delineation of all these passions is too fine-spun, too
argumentative to please the general public; the style is sometimes
stilted, yet passages of great beauty may be found in it. Moreover the
jealousy expressed by Don Garcia is neither sufficiently terrible to
frighten, nor ridiculous enough to amuse the audience; he always speaks
and acts as a prince, and hence, he sometimes becomes royally
monotonous.
Some scenes of this play have been imitated in _The Masquerade_, a
comedy, acted at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1719, London, "printed
for Bernard Linton, between the Temple Gate," which was itself partly
borrowed from Shirley's _Lady of Pleasure_.
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