:''This is for the Marivaux play, for the band, see

La Dispute (band) La Dispute is an American post-hardcore band from Grand Rapids, Michigan, formed in 2004. The current lineup is vocalist Jordan Dreyer, drummer Brad Vander Lugt, guitarist Chad Morgan-Sterenberg, guitarist Corey Stroffolino and bass guitarist ...

.'' ''La Dispute'' is a

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

written by

Pierre de Marivaux Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist. He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing nume ...

, shown for the first time on 19 October 1744 by the Théâtre-Italien in the Hôtel de Bourgogne. The story involves four orphans (two boys and two girls) who have been raised in isolation, from the world and from each other. An aristocrat releases four human guinea pigs into a sinister Garden of Eden to cause them to consider the question of whether man or woman is more faithful. Adaptations have been created from 1972 and onward in various forms.

Reception

For the 2013 adaptation, editor for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' Sylviane Gold wrote: "La Dispute opens with Prince and Hermiane, as a pair of exquisitely bewigged, bejeweled aristocrats, discussing with typical Marivaux finesse a lover’s question, one that would appear to have no answer. Who committed the first infidelity, mankind or womankind? But since we’re in Enlightenment France, there’s an app for that: the Prince tells his lady that when the same debate arose in his father’s court nearly 20 years earlier, a scientific experiment was devised to provide incontrovertible evidence as to who started the war between the sexes. In a variation on one of the 18th century’s favorite themes, that of "

The Wild Child ''The Wild Child'' (french: L'Enfant sauvage, released in the United Kingdom as ''The Wild Boy'') is a 1970 French film by director François Truffaut. Featuring Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner and Jean Dasté, it ...

," two newborn boys, Azor and Mesrin, and two newborn girls, Églé and Adine, were removed to a distant, custom-built, high-walled enclosure. There, each was raised, and taught French, naturally, in total isolation by two faithful old servants, Mesrou and Carise. Today, the arrival of the aristocrats signals the culmination of the experiment. They will observe unseen as the now adolescent children, simply dressed in pure white, are released into one another’s company for the very first time, blank slates who will discover, or perhaps invent, love, sex and jealousy for themselves. And for the sake of science."

In popular culture

* The band

La Dispute :''This is for the Marivaux play, for the band, see La Dispute (band).'' ''La Dispute'' is a prose comedy written by Pierre de Marivaux, shown for the first time on 19 October 1744 by the Théâtre-Italien in the Hôtel de Bourgogne. The story i ...

named themselves after the play. The band's lead singer, Jordan Dreyer, watched the play in high school and felt parallels between the work and the music he was writing at the time.

References

French plays 1744 plays {{18thC-play-stub