Agnes Callard’s Insistent Answers to Life’s Questions

IN MOLIÈRE’S PLAY Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, the hapless M. Jourdain, at last afforded the leisure to enjoy his new wealth, finds himself caught between warring domestic forces. On the one side, there’s the phalanx of tutors he commissioned to teach him every genteel thing he’s begun to imagine: fencing, music, dance, grammar, even philosophy. But on the other side are arrayed his wife, daughter, and a very invested maid, who press him to explain: What are these lessons actually good for? Exasperated by their practicality, Jourdain avers he’d even put up with being caned, if only his philosophy tutor could help him converse a little better with civilized people.