Molire, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in1622, began his career as an actor before becoming a playwright who specialized in satirizing the institutions and morals of his day. In 1658, his theater company settled in Paris in the Thter du Petit-Bourbon. The object of fierce attack because of such masterpieces as
Tartuffe and
Don Juan, Molire nonetheless won the favor of the public. In 1665, his company became the King's Troupe, and the following year saw the staging of
The Misanthrope, as well as
The Doctor in Spite of Himself. In 1668, he produced his bitterly comic
The Miser and, in the remaining years before his death, created such plays as
The Would-Be Gentleman,
The Mischievous Machinations of Scapin, and
The Learned Women. In 1673, Molire collapsed onstage while performing his last play,
The Imaginary Invalid, and died shortly thereafter.
Donald M. Frame was Moore Professor of French at Columbia University and an acclaimed scholar and translator of French literature. Among his notable works of translation are
The Complete Essays of Montaigne,
The Complete Works of Rabelais, and the Signet Classics
Tartuffe & Other Plays and
Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories.
Virginia Scott is Professor Emerita in the Department of Theater of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is the author of
Molire: A Theatrical Life,
The Commedia Dell'Arte in Paris, and
Performance, Poetry and Politics on the Queen's Day: Catherine de Medici and Pierre de Ronsard at Fontainebleau (with Sara Sturm-Maddox).
