The Precious Young Maidens [4] -

From The Big Book of Molière Monologues by actor/author Timothy Mooney. A collection of over 160 of Molière's funniest monologues in new rhymed iambic pentameter versions. The “précieuses” were a sort of young woman caught up in the sentimentality of the romantic fiction of the day. These ladies, in their salons, had gained a certain sway in Molière’s time. To them, there was a certain proscribed set of rules dictating the procedures, rites and rituals surrounding the romantic encounter. It was an elaborate dance of love, which featured the man approaching the young woman, being shunned, and gradually working his way back into the woman’s graces by demonstrating the strength and the intrepid determination of the lover. Molière satirized these rituals by revealing a pair of these young maidens wooed by a pair of men who were eminent and attractive in their own right. Unfortunately, these men do not play the game by the rules that the précieuses had foreseen.see less