Moliere
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...
2) Tartuffe
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris, there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Htel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...
Author
Language
English
Description
The play opens with Argan, a severe hypochondriac, going through the bill from his apothecary (the pharmacist) item by item. He pays out only about half of what is on the bill. That done, he calls for his maid, Toinette. When she fails to appear immediately he shouts and calls her name until she arrives. Toinette is not interested in putting up with Argan's temper, so she mocks his rage.
Author
Publisher
Duke Classics
Language
English
Formats
Description
The School for Husbands (L'École des maris) is a work by Molière (the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), a French playwright who is often considered to be one of Western literature's great masters of comedy. In a theatre in the Louvre and in the Palais-Royal, Molière found success among the Parisians with The School for Husbands. First performed in 1661, it forms part of Molière's "Jealousy series",
...Author
Language
English
Description
Orgon's family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a pious fraud (and a vagrant prior to Orgon's help). Tartuffe pretends to be pious and to speak with divine authority, and Orgon and his mother no longer take any action without first consulting him.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Two timeless comedies by one of France's greatest playwrights: Tartuffe, a 1664 verse comedy concerning a scoundrel who impersonates a holy man, and the 1670 prose farce The Bourgeois Gentleman, a lampoon about the superficial characteristics of Parisian nobility. Original French texts with excellent English interpretations on facing pages.
Author
Language
English
Description
Scapin constantly lies and tricks people to get ahead. He is an arrogant, pompous man who acts as if nothing were impossible for him. However, he is also a diplomatic genius. He manages to play the other characters off of each other very easily, and yet manages to keep his overall goal - to help the young couples - in sight.
Author
Language
English
Description
This work includes seven of the plays that accredited Molière as the greatest and best-loved French playwright of all times: "The Pretentious Young Ladies," "The School for Husbands," "The School for Wives," a comedy of infidelity and his first great success, "The Critique of the School for Wives," "The Impromptu of Versailles," "Tartuffe," a highly controversial play in its time, and "Don Juan." Although Tartuffe was immediately censured and banned...
Author
Language
English
Description
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris, there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Htel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...
Author
Language
English
Description
After his death, Molière was gradually recognized in France as that country's most important dramatist. Along with this realization came a desire to write plays ABOUT the writer, his life on the stage, and his interaction with the other dramatists of his age, and also with King Louis XIV. Even Alexandre Dumas featured Molière as a character in his historical play, The Young Louis XIV. Molière himself was such a large, dynamic figure in real life...
12) The Miser
Author
Language
English
Description
The miser of the title is called Harpagon, a name adapted from the Latin harpago, meaning a hook or grappling iron. He is obsessed with the wealth he has amassed and always ready to save expenses. Now a widower, he has a son, Cléante, and a daughter, Élise. Although he is over sixty, he is attempting to arrange a marriage between himself and an attractive young woman, Mariane.
Author
Language
Français
Description
Magdelon and Cathos, two young women from the provinces who have come to Paris in search of love and jeux d'esprit. Gorgibus, the father of Magdelon and uncle of Cathos, decides they should marry a pair of eminently eligible young men but the two women find the men unrefined and ridicule them.
14) Amphitryon
Author
Language
English
Description
After his wedding night with beautiful Alcmene, Amphitryon leaves to participate in a war. Jupiter, who is fascinated by Alcmene's beauty, come to earth under the appearance of Amphitryon, accompanied by Mercury who has taken the appearance of Amphitryon's servant Sosie. Amphitryon is successful in war and sends Sosie back home to report this. Sosie is greeted by his look-alike Mercury, who beats him and convinces him that he Mercury is the real Sosie....
Author
Language
English
Description
Magdelon and Cathos, two young women from the provinces who have come to Paris in search of love and jeux d'esprit. Gorgibus, the father of Magdelon and uncle of Cathos, decides they should marry a pair of eminently eligible young men but the two women find the men unrefined and ridicule them.
Author
Language
English
Description
The King, who will have nothing but what is magnificent in all he undertakes, wished to give his court an entertainment which should comprise all that the stage can furnish. To facilitate the execution of so vast an idea, and to link together so many different things, his Majesty chose for the subject two rival princes, who, in the lovely vale of Tempe, where the Pythian Games were to be celebrated, vie with each other in fêting a young princess...
17) L'Avare
Author
Language
Français
Description
The miser of the title is called Harpagon, a name adapted from the Latin harpago, meaning a hook or grappling iron. He is obsessed with the wealth he has amassed and always ready to save expenses. Now a widower, he has a son, Cléante, and a daughter, Élise. Although he is over sixty, he is attempting to arrange a marriage between himself and an attractive young woman, Mariane.
18) Psyche
Author
Language
English
Description
Psyche's jealous sisters attempt to attract the attention of her two most recent suitors, without success. Psyche refuses both suitors before being called away by a messenger. The messenger then informs Psyche's sisters that she must be sacrificed on the mountain top and devoured by a monster. The sisters confess their delight before a group of mourners arrive on stage and sing the first intermède, the plainte italienne.
Author
Language
English
Description
The play takes place at Mr. Jourdain's house in Paris. Jourdain is a middle-aged 'bourgeois' whose father grew rich as a cloth merchant. The foolish Jourdain now has one aim in life, which is to rise above this middle-class background and be accepted as an aristocrat. To this end, he orders splendid new clothes and is very happy when the tailor's boy mockingly addresses him as 'my Lord'.
Author
Publisher
Duke Classics
Language
English
Description
The Imaginary Invalid is a three-part comedy about a miser who imagines illnesses for himself, and whose doctor milks his hypochondria for everything he can get. Their mutual greed and dishonesty lead to their downfall.
It was the last play Moliere ever wrote, and he collapsed whilst playing the hypochondriac, shortly before he died. The play originally included dance sequences and musical interludes.
