Playwright · 1622 – 1673
Molière
Key Takeaways
- Molière is the greatest comic playwright in the French language.
- His plays satirize hypocrisy, vanity, greed and pretension.
- He wrote, directed and acted in his own comedies under royal patronage.
- French is still sometimes called 'the language of Molière'.
Molière made the court of France laugh at itself. The greatest comic playwright in the French language, he turned the follies of his age — hypocrisy, snobbery, greed — into comedies so sharp they are still performed everywhere today.
Master of comedy
Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, he took the stage name Molière and wrote, directed and starred in his own plays under the patronage of King Louis XIV. Tartuffe skewered religious hypocrisy so effectively it was banned; The Misanthrope and The Imaginary Invalid exposed human vanity with merciless wit. He raised comedy, long thought a lesser form, to the level of high art.
The language of Molière
So central did he become to French culture that the French language itself is still called “the language of Molière.” Working in the Baroque era alongside the legacy of William Shakespeare in England, this playwright — who collapsed on stage and died hours later — left comedy forever changed.
Influence
Molière elevated comedy to the level of high art, exposing human folly with wit so enduring that French itself is called 'the language of Molière'.
Legacy
His plays remain the cornerstone of French theatre and among the most staged comedies anywhere in the world.
Major Works
- Tartuffe
- The Misanthrope
- The Imaginary Invalid
Connections
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Molière?
Molière (1622–1673) was a French playwright and actor, the greatest master of comedy in French, author of Tartuffe and The Misanthrope.
Why is French called the language of Molière?
Molière's comedies are so central to French literature and theatre that his name became a byword for the French language itself.
Citations & Sources
People Like Molière
William Shakespeare
96William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist.
Why The other towering dramatist of early modern Europe, master of the stage as Molière was of comedy.
Voltaire
90Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher and wit, a tireless champion of reason, free speech and religious tolerance and one of the most influential figures of his age.
Why A later French writer who admired Molière and shared his satirical eye for hypocrisy.
Euripides
79Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, whose psychologically searching, often unsettling plays such as Medea and The Bacchae made him the most modern-feeling dramatist of the ancient world.
Why An ancient dramatist in the theatrical tradition Molière inherited and renewed.
Alexandre Dumas
81Alexandre Dumas was a French writer whose swashbuckling historical novels — The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo — became some of the most popular and widely adapted stories in the world.
Why Also a writer & playwright · From the same civilization
Anton Chekhov
81Anton Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer — and a practising physician — widely regarded as among the greatest masters of both the short story and modern drama, whose plays like The Cherry Orchard transformed the theatre.
Why Also a playwright & writer · Comparable historical impact
George Bernard Shaw
80George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic and polemicist, the leading dramatist of his age after Shakespeare, whose witty, idea-driven plays such as Pygmalion won him the Nobel Prize in Literature and, uniquely, an Academy Award.
Why Also a playwright & writer · Comparable historical impact