The Misanthrope / Tartuffe

by Molière, Richard Wilbur (Translator)

Critics have heralded Richard Wilbur's translations of Molière's seventeenth-century dramas as masterpieces. In brilliant rhymed couplets Wilbur renders into English not only the form and spirit of Molière's language but also its substance.

The Misanthrope, one of Molière's most popular plays, is a searching comic study of falsity, shallowness, and self-righteousness. The misanthrope in this case is Alceste, a man whose conscience and sincerity are too rigorous for his time. In Tartuffe the title character, a wily opportunist and swindler, affects sanctity and gains complete ascendancy over Orgon, a rich bourgeois who in his middle years has become a bigot and prude. Only when Orgon actually witnesses Tartuffe's attempt to seduce his wife does he come to his senses. Richard Wilbur won a share of the Bollingen Translation Prize for his much-acclaimed translation of this satiric turn on religious hypocrisy.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Classics, Theatre, Fiction, France, French Literature

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1666

About the author

Sophisticated comedies of French playwright Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin, include Tartuffe (1664), The Misanthrope (1666), and The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670).

French literary figures, including Molière and Jean de la Fontaine, gathered at Auteuil, a favorite place.

People know and consider Molière, stage of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also an actor of the greatest masters in western literature. People best know l'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), l'Avare ou l'École du mensonge (The Miser), and le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) among dramas of Molière.

From a prosperous family, Molière studied at the Jesuit Clermont college (now lycée Louis-le-Grand) and well suited to begin a life in the theater. While 13 years as an itinerant actor helped to polish his abilities, he also began to combine the more refined elements with ccommedia dell'arte.

Through the patronage of the brother of Louis XIV and a few aristocrats, Molière procured a command performance before the king at the Louvre. Molière performed a classic of [authore:Pierre Corneille] and le Docteur amoureux (The Doctor in Love), a farce of his own; people granted him the use of Salle du Petit-Bourbon, a spacious room, appointed for theater at the Louvre. Later, people granted the use of the Palais-Royal to Molière. In both locations, he found success among the Parisians with les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Ladies), l'École des maris</i> (<i>The School for Husbands</i>), and <i>[book:l'École des femmes (The School for Wives). This royal favor brought a pension and the title "Troupe du Roi" (the troupe of the king). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments.

Molière received the adulation of the court and Parisians, but from moralists and the Church, his satires attracted criticisms. From the Church, his attack on religious hypocrisy roundly received condemnations, while people banned performance of Don Juan . From the stage, hard work of Molière in so many theatrical capacities began to take its toll on his health and forced him to take a break before 1667.

From pulmonary tuberculosis, Molière suffered. In 1673 during his final production of le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), a coughing fit and a haemorrhage seized him as Argan, the hypochondriac. He finished the performance but collapsed again quickly and died a few hours later. In time in Paris, Molière completely reformed.

Reviews

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

“That virtue in this world is hated ever; Malicious men may die, but malice never.”

I loved both of Moliere's plays, he mocked pretty much everyone in an incredibly charming way, playing with his wit and humor in masterful verses. I read in an excellent translation, but I can only imagine how satisfactory these verses are in French. I believe Moliere was the type of person that can offend you ruthlessly and you can still enjoy it, and I can't believe some people in his time sabotaged these masterpieces, but I guess people are always upset when a psychological mirror is turned towards them. I perceived his voice as a mix of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, almost equally skillful. Yet, these plays are not as focused on plot development, as they are in laying out commentary and ideas, and that is the one thing that is missing and separates him from Shakespeare or Wilde, so people that read plays for a story can be underwhelmed.

“Here in the world, each human frailty
Provides occasion for philosophy,
And that is virtue's noblest exercise”

I don't mind that that much, as I value more laying out the truth about inherent human nature that he completely penetrated, exposition of inner and other contradictions and bold critique of an individual as well as collective, than the plot of the play. So many magnificent quotes from these plays. What he does the best is an equalization of people in the universality of faults, as he exposes both misanthropy and righteousness as a lie as each person is embedded in hypocrisy and the illusion of his own supremacy against all others whose vices seems more apparent to him than his own. A futile attempt to distance oneself from being a fallacious, irrational, deceiving mortal like everybody else. Honesty and holiness are mere myths we tell ourselves having to ignore a whole lot of other aspects of ourselves in the process.

“Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal.”

Recommended for philosophers, hypocrites, misanthropes, lovers of social satire and those who can stand looking in the reality of flaws of own soul.

“Betrayed and wronged in everything, I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king,
And seek some spot unpeopled and apart, Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart.”

[david · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would imagine that between the time of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde many important and disparate events occurred throughout the world.

But, who cares?

I am not a historian nor an academic. I have not a clue as to what went on during these two-three hundred years. In fact, I can hardly recall the last two hundred hours.

This is astonishing work. As we say in Dordogne, “Holy Cannoli.” Or, in Puglia we might exclaim, “mon Dieu.”

Rhyming stanzas only, employed.

The Zeitgeist of seventeenth century France, delivered though the lines of characters on a stage.

With humor.

Impossible? I guess not.

“Tartuffe,” and “The Misanthrope,” two plays.

The principle players represent two types of individuals, the hypocritical manipulator of people in one, and in the other, the disdain for them.

Everyone has an opinion of the French. Me too.

They have climbed and summited some very challenging literary mountains.

And descended to bring us some great stuff to read.

[Savannah Dockins · Rating 5 out of 5]

who would’ve thought that during the class discussion of this book the students would teach me what the words gaslighting, rage-baiting, and simp mean

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read The Misanthrope and was surprised by how it held me. Generally, I find plays very dead on the page. Not this one. Moliere's keen wit and sharp characterizations comes through beautifully. He has this very light touch. And here's the funny thing--the play's in verse! Rhyming couplets for the most part. Here's part of what translator Wilbur says about it: "In this play, society itself is indicted, and though Alceste's criticisms are indiscriminate, they are not unjustified...." Let me add that Alceste thinks of himself as the only moral visionary about. Everyone else is ruined by the various social fraudulences of the day (1666). There are others who see through this faux civility, too, of course, but Alceste is the one whose pride spurs him on to ever greater truth telling. If the play weren't so funny, and Wilbur's verse so sharp, Alceste would be a very great bore indeed. Tartuffe I liked too. It's about this con man who, playing the role of the pious Christian, wheedles his way into the heart of a prosperous Paris householder. That man, Orgon, is so taken in by the fraud Tartuffe that he allows it to disrupt his very large household. But then he's caught trying to seduce the lady of the house. That moment of exposure provides enormous pleasure. Though the meter tends to slow the reader down a bit, both plays read very fast, about an hour each.

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molière, (1622-1673) was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature.

My selected readings are among Molière's best-known comedies:

Les Précieuses Ridicules, *** L’Avare *****
L’Ecole des Maris, *** Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ***
L’Ecole des Femmes, **** Les Fourberies de Scapin ****
Le Misanthrope. *** Les Femmes Savantes ****
Le Malade Imaginaire *****

The first thing that came to my mind was to compare Molière with Shakespeare.
Shakespeare, only about fifty years before Moliere, from an actor, become a genial playwright.

Whether they had been excellent actors, I don't know, but they became each one a genius in his style. Shakespeare in drama and Moliere in comedy.

In Shakespeare's dramas at the end of the play, there is grief and death.

In Moliere’s comedies, in conclusion, the moral is always safe, and even though the outcome may sometimes be farfetched, all end in marriages and happy ends.

Moliere's style of writing is incredibly delicate, and all the dialogues are pure poetry, naturally riming as if the author's thinking was permanently in that mode.

The settings are mostly popular environments, characters from French aristocratic society and bourgeois as well as merchants, farmers, servants and girls in all imaginable situations.

There is ample material to write a review on each one of the plays, but I will save that for my next life.

Moliere’s theatres may have been simple in his beginnings in small provincial places, but when he became noticed in Paris and appointed the king’s personal entertainer things changed.

At that time, there may not have been more distinguished and luxurious theatres in the whole of Europe. Costumes for actors, accessories, and decorum as well as music and dance would have been chosen from the most beautiful the richest available anywhere.

Moliere’s comedies was an exceptional reading experience for me.

I would say it is one of the Must-reads in life.
5 likes

[Christina Patches · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and concerning in its own way :)

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Misanthrope — 5 stars —Alceste wants to cut through social niceties with honesty and despises those who ply friends and acquaintances with false compliments and courtesies, but he falls in love with Celimene, beautiful, flirtatious, and juggling a retinue of beaus. Witty, thoughtful, and offering no easy answers to the questions it poses.

Audiobook: After reading the play, I listened to the excellent LA Theater Works audiobook. In addition to the play, it includes an interesting 16 minute talk on Moliere’s life and work.

[Paras2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, it was amazing. It's been sooooo long since I've read an enjoyable play like this. 😍
I'm officially the fan of moliere now :))))

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was first introduced to Molière in high school via Richard Wilbur’s translations. I adored them. I’ll admit I cracked open this volume with trepidation: What if they weren’t as magical? What if my expanded experience and knowledge dulled their luster?

Nope. Still brilliant.

Maybe it’s because I was introduced to Molière via Wilbur, but I don’t think anyone can match Wilbur’s brilliance in translating these plays into English. Over sixty years on and they remain phenomenal translations. Funny, agile, and razor sharp, Molière’s wit works on page as well as it does on stage. Wilbur’s translations read like poetry, and I found myself going back and rereading sections because I was so entertained. Even if you aren’t normally one for reading plays, make an exception for these. Highly recommended.

[Peter Crofts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far more than enough good descriptions of the plots within other reviews, I'm not putting up another.

I think Wilbur is the way to go, I've looked at some other translations, but this one strikes me as the least intrusive. Some translations do far more than try and move meaning from one language to another, they also try and convert it culturally. I find such work hard to read, as the translation crashes for me every time a jarring cultural conversion occurs.

These are probably Moliere's best known plays, but you may want to start, if you've got a bit of an allergy to versified plays, with a volume of his prose works. Perhaps a volume containing "The Miser", but, again be wary, if such things bother you, of versions that have turned 17th century France into 17th century England.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Misanthrope by Moliere


A misanthrope seems to be a negative character, someone who can teach us only what to avoid, whose flaws are to be displayed so that the audience would not take a similar path, a role model with a minus in front.

Indeed, positive psychology studies have revealed that isolation – which goes hand in hand with misanthropy – is Twice as Dangerous as smoking and therefore we should soon have messages on television that speak about this peril, just as the public was informed about smoking.
A happy person is one that socializes – the opposite of the main character in this play – and there is research in the same domain of psychology that suggests that the size of the human brain is due to the need to cope with the community and the use of tools as had been thought.

The challenges of being able to deal with the multitude of issues posed by a variety of individuals in society is daunting and leads to the “social animal’s” large brain size, capable to simultaneously satisfy this child, that woman and this man, all the same time.
The Misanthrope is a complex, dynamic hero who has the handicap of cynicism, skepticism, reclusiveness and hatred of human beings, but at the same time, he has some very valuable traits.

He is honest in the extreme and although this sounds like a positive trait, there is more to say about it, as an interlocutor, Celimene, highlights when talking about the various shortcomings of people that we surely could not speak of in their face…
That woman, he says, you cannot say to her that she is no longer young and under the paint on her face, it is evident that age has taken its toll and she no longer fools anyone in that regard – this is not a quote, but it is the message of the friend.

How to Win Friends and Influence People, the archetypal, quintessential classic that has sold hundreds of millions of copies, being one of the best sold books in history, by Dale Carnegie argues that we all like to be appreciated and complimented, therefore one of the rules has it that we should use praise to win friends…
This is not what the Misanthrope does; he is so honest as to antagonize even professed admirers, one of them coming to express his awe, only to find he is soon repudiated, granted, after he annoys his audience with his poem.

This amateur, awful poet takes ages before he starts with his bad creation, explaining it only took him minutes, it is dedicated to someone he loves and the Misanthrope aka Alceste keeps telling him to get on with it, while the boring performer repeats himself ad nauseam.
In favor of the hero, one must highlight that he did not respond to the flattery, in fact he says nothing with this proclaimed fan makes a laudatory speech, kisses Alceste, asking for his true opinion…in other words, the victim is the one who called upon himself the brutal, vigorous, acid but sincere evaluation of his failed poetry.

One can argue that the Misanthrope has a point- taking it to the present, let us look at what people elect, in the United States, Russia, Italy and so many other countries, individuals like Trump and Putin.
If this is the choice of so many human beings, we could say that being a Recluse, a Hermit is the right choice, if humanity opts for these inverted, perverted values proclaimed by the likes of the Orange Donald, then there is no reason to interact, converse, mingle with such creatures…

What is more, Alceste is quick to emphasize that he does not view his own shortcomings as tolerable or his persona as above the rest – in such flagrant contrast with Trump, extreme narcissist that he is – when challenged by the flawed poet.
The Misanthrope exaggerates when he says that the poem is “rubbish, nauseating and later on, that the poet must have his throat cut” – but when asked to present his own work, so that it can be evaluated, the hero says plainly that his is not any better.

However, he does not feel the need to overwhelm others with his creations, aware that they are not worthwhile.
The French have a saying – "les extrêmes se touchent” aka opposites attract, Alceste is strangely attracted to Celimene, a woman with the opposite views, flattering where the protagonist criticizes, limiting herself to irony, rejection of various characters only when they are not around.

There are some personages that show the merits of the Misanthrope by contrast, Alceste is so self-indulgent, arrogant, pretentious and vain in his statements about his value, the manner in which his pronouncements are followed and the people of Paris depend on his opinions.

When placing the two on the same stage, one cannot help but see the superiority of the Hermit, when the company, community is formed of such brutes and ignoramuses
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in a letter that The Misanthrope is the best work written by Moliere – on the other hand, we learn from the brilliant The Intellectuals by the wonderful Paul Johnson that the philosopher has abandoned all his many children at the door of the orphanage, in an age when nine out of orphans left in such a place died…

“Mankind has grown so base, / I mean to break with the whole human race".

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clichés are a strange thing to judge an older text by, since it's often hard to say whether something that is commonplace and tired today wasn't fresh and revolutionary at the time. While I can't be sure about how new the tropes used by Molière in these two plays were when they were written, I know that they struck me as stale when I read them today.

Tartuffe features a bumbling, foolish, and quick to anger husband and a clever wife trying to undue his mistakes, a Homer and Marge Simpson for 17th century France. The antagonist is the titular Tartuffe, a hypocrite who hides in the mantle of piousness while secretly lusting after both wealth and a married woman. It's never believable that Tartuffe hoodwinked anyone, as he's only ever portrayed as an idiot only a hair's-breadth more clever than the bumbling husband. The play really beats you over the head with its message, that you should avoid being suckered by deception or self-deception, and that all that glitters isn't gold. Tartuffe's use of religion to mask his true intention may have been revolutionary at the time, but nowadays it's hard to go on an online forum without someone drawing the same connection between the church and deceit of the masses. Molière uses a royal deus ex machina to shoehorn in a happy ending.

The Misanthrope is slightly more interesting, mostly because of how it largely refuses to give the expected ending. There are some interesting characters here, but instead of exploring the worldview of a man who detests people, or one who shamelessly flatters everyone equally, or someone who can't restrain herself from flirting with everyone available, Molière treats these as amusing personalities for the play and nothing more. Large swaths of this play are characters just flat out refusing to communicate (something that is played for comedic effect in Tartuffe, but more briefly) and using this method to create dramatic tension has always rubbed me the wrong way. It's something that occasionally happens in real life, but rarely, and not usually for an extended conversation. It's a very artificial way to put two characters at odds with each other, and I take it as a sign of bad writing. Again, though, perhaps it wasn't so tired in the 17th century.

There are some good points to the plays as well, for instance women aren't passive objects but active participants in both plays, and Molière is gifted at crafting dialogue. I'm sure a production of either of these plays could be quite funny. Overall though, I expected something more from one of France's greatest playwrights. As Molière wrote:

Everything, madam, may be praised or blamed,
And each is right, in proper time and season.

Others have loved this play for hundreds of years, and I'm sure many will continue to do so for many years to come, but for me I'm afraid Molière's season has passed.

[E. Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this little book should be required reading in every college in the English-speaking world. Richard Wilbur and Molière saved my life as I transitioned from college to find something human and meaningful in the wider world. This comedy was my companion and guide to surviving as a mere semi-misanthrope rather than a full-on enemy of all-too-human humanity. A touchstone of my understanding of humanity, every bit as much as anything that Shakespeare guy came up with.

The translation is miraculous: fresh, alive, and constantly delightful, as I imagine the original lines are in French.

[Giorgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too bad. Good, even. Witty and capable of encapsulating several key themes tied to the time and place in which the comedies are set. However, I’ve read one too many of these in a row. Perhaps the fog currently clouding my brain will clear soon, but for now, I fear that if I say “I hate French” one more time while reading Molière, I might accidentally cast a spell to erase France entirely. At that point, comedies from the 1600s wouldn’t seem so important, would they? That’s all, folks. I might revisit Molière later in life. Or maybe in another life. Or maybe when I’m not speed-reading his works to cram for an exam on French theatre.

[Samantha Sprole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these plays aloud and had a marvelous time. The humor is astoundingly relatable. Truly, I was astonished at how easily I could see my own human foibles reflected in the characters, particularly the uptight, dogmatically individualistic Alceste and the quarreling lovers from Tartuffe.

If I may, though, I think the villain Tartuffe and his unwitting victims especially give us food for thought in these contemporary times. Tartuffe is a con man, plain and simple, but for those people under his spell it takes extraordinary proof of his duplicity for them to realize what's obvious to everyone else.

In our own times, we also have our religious charlatans bilking their adoring public to pay for ostentatious luxury items. Unfortunately, though, the most damaging con men are probably not those peddling a religious faith, but those peddling a false populism in the political arena. It really makes you wonder, What would it take to get everyone to see what's behind the curtain?

[Jade (beauty.andherbooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! Read Misanthrope in class which made the experience enjoyable.

[Jason Bushnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a handwritten list of “other books I think you should read, but don’t have time to teach you”—written by my 11th/12th grade high school English teacher. On that list: “Tartuffee, Moliere.”

Laura brought this copy home from the library, so I read both The Misanthrope and Tartuffee. These translations were done in the mid-1950s and mid-1960s (respectively), and despite that the language is impressively approachable and modern. The rhymed couplets of both plays make the action fly by. I can only begin to imagine the work that went into translating this from French to English. But it stands up well.

I would see both of these “comedies” on stage if given the chance. But to read them is merely “fine.”

Thanks, Mr. White (who is probably deceased, and was definitely a Confederate sympathizer, per his Facebook page 😒, but who is probably at least partially responsible for my open mind), for the recommendation.

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

7/21/2019
This time around I only read The Misanthrope (again) and do not have anything to add to what I wrote earlier. Need to read Tartuffe again soon.


7/13/2012
This time around I only read The Misanthrope. It is, of course, an absolute pleasure from the first rhyming couplet to the last. It is even more dialogue-driven than most Moliere plays, perhaps somewhat more of a discourse and debate on manners and society and a little bit less of a madcap plot--although that is not entirely lacking either. And Alceste, the misanthrope of the title, is a particularly memorable figure.

[Jesse Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adam seems born to play Alceste, the Misanthrope, with sympathy. ("He's not wrong!")

Men, Sir, are always wrong, that's the reason
That righteous anger's never out of season;
All that I hear in all their conversation
Is flattering praise or reckless condemnation.

Of course, Alceste never sees that he himself delivers condemnation recklessly! Celimène is more mature in that she accepts being a human in the world as much as she likes to dish out the dirt. The ending of The Misanthrope puzzled us, a little, as it lacked the final marriage we’d expected. As poet-translator Richard Wilbur says in his introduction, the play indicts a whole society, so denying us the satisfaction of a happy ending makes sense, I suppose.

Wilbur is also helpful in explaining Tartuffe: Orgon makes sense because Tartuffe offers him a reason to punish his family for being younger and gayer than he — once again it’s the punitive moral tyranny of an egoist, and not much related to any true religious piety. We saw somewhere else that Molière’s first versions were harder on the Catholic Church, which suppressed them. Adam would like to see the lines that offended the most, but Wilbur doesn’t mention this.

It’s hard to picture experiencing Molière by any finer representation than Richard Wilbur’s heroic couplets. Heroic — it’s damned near miraculous that he finds nearly nothing but perfect rhymes, even with two or three syllables, all throughout.

Good God! Do you expect me to submit
To the tyranny of that carping hypocrite?
Must we forgo all joys and satisfactions
Because that bigot censures all our actions?

I’m sure I’ll be tracking down more of Wilbur’s work — now I wonder what his own, original poetry is like.

[Marta D'Agord · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recomendo a tradução brasileira de O Misantropo de Molière (1622-1673) pela Martins Fontes (2005). A tradução em versos, elaborada por Jenny Klabin Segall, merece uma leitura em voz alta e sem pressa. O personagem central da peça é Alceste, que se apresenta como um homem de bem que quer distância dos vícios da época e das pessoas que a esse vícios aderem; mesmo que, assim procedendo, fique sem amigos, pois, para ele, estimar todo mundo é não se estimar nada. Ele sempre apela aos sentimentos, os dele: "que fale o coração, e que os reais sentimentos não se ocultem jamais sob ocos cumprimentos". A ironia nessa comédia estará na inclinação amorosa de Alceste por Celimene, moça de "humor faceiro e gênio maldizente" e a quem não faltam pretendentes. No salão dessa jovem, a vaidade é ridicularizada, o que remete aos salões proustianos. Não faltariam paralelos entre Celimene e duas personagens de Em busca do tempo perdido: a Duquesa de Guermantes e Odette. Para ler Proust, contei, então, com o belo ensaio de Leda Tenório da Motta, Proust: a violência sutil do riso (2007), que faz a seguinte relação: a maneira sutil do narrador de Proust fazer uma crítica à hipocrisia e à farsa nos salões parisienses da Belle Époque requeria uma alusão à Comédia de Molière. A autora brasileira lembra-nos ainda que Harold Bloom, ao incluir Molière em seu famoso cânone, comentou: "As peças de Molière mostram que a vida de todo mundo é um romance, uma farsa, uma desgraça".

[Jason Cady · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading these two plays.

They are both hilarious. They were translated into rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (the original French also rhymed, but the meter was different). The plots are ridiculous. My only complaint is that Tartuffe ends with a deus ex machina.

I decided to read this because I was curious about theater between the time of Shakespeare and Ibsen. I recently saw a wonderful production on Broadway of Ibsen's A Doll's House, and since Ibsen, along with Chekhov and others were hailed for their naturalism and for how much they revolutionized theater that made me want to check out some earlier plays. I think I prefer this pre-Naturalism style. I don't usually enjoy insult humor, but when Moliere's characters are insulting each other with rhymes it becomes so silly and fun.

I wish theater companies would retire Shakespeare from their repertoire and start performing Moliere instead.

[Kevin Eigelbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't remember when I've enjoyed reading anything more than these two wonderful plays by France's greatest playwright. The Misanthrope concerns a man who has lost all faith in humanity and wants nothing more than to live alone. He always tells the truth, which leads to all sorts of complications. Tartuffe is the 17th-Century version of a televangelist. He acts holier than everyone else, and has convinced a wealthy patron and the patron's mother that he's a saint, but he's really greedy and lustful.
These plays were written in the late 1600s, but they seem as contemporary as anything written recently. And they're witty and full of trenchant observations about human nature. The translator has written it in rhyming couplets that are a joy to read. Highly recommended.

[Derek Neveu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an overly challenging play to comprehend, but humorous in parts for sure, and a there is unfortunately still a lot that current society can learn from it. The ideas of blind faith, hypocrisy, and false prophets sadly still ring true today. Orgon and his mother would have been terrible on social media, and would have believed just about anything they read online, regardless of what truths were found right in front of them. Moliere’s classic play points out that there will always be fools in society, and likewise, there will also always be people waiting in the shadows (or in this case in the open) to take full advantage of them.

[Eric Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the wheel that is Western literature, this simple play (Tartuffe) is a profound example of excellent poetry and one that should still be required reading for every high schooler and adult. Its' not so subtle villian is a clear example of a shakedown artist, manipulator, womanizer and snake all wrapped into one totally believable character. He's fooled Orgon into disowning just about his entire family over a false friendship built on the lies of impure morality, character and smooth talking. Still relevant today? Absolutely. Read it, it might take an hour, but the payout will be timeless!

[Anna Zhirova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Their relationship Orgon's family and Tartufee reminded me about the relationship of Russian Tsar Nickolay II family and Grigoriy Rasputin, a religious man who became close to the family. Rasputin was a self-proclaimed holy man who had healing abilities. As Prince Alexiy has hemophilia, Tsar Nickolay and Tsarina Alexandra came under the influence of Rasputin. Elite was worried about the growing influence of Rasputin, and killed him. Rasputin was known for sexual relationships with countless women, insisting that was the key to their spiritual salvation (like Tartuffe).

[Abigail Mohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were two fun and entertaining comedies! At first, I thought I’d end up liking The Misanthrope better than Tartuffe, but I ended up really enjoying both. If you want to read a comedy in the vein of Shakespeare without some of the ridiculous disguises and people turning into donkeys, check these out. They both tackle some heavy topics but in a really fun and light way. They’re both fun reads and surprisingly relatable for plays written in the 17th century; plus, the rhyming couplets make them very entertaining and quick to read.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I reread these plays last summer, I thought to myself, "Someone needs to write a rhyming verse play about America's farcical election." I even sketched it out: a vaguely Frenchish court abuzz over the news that the king intends to appoint a new minister of everything, various courtiers puffing themselves up with expectation, the surprise news that the court jester intends to put himself forward... That was back when it all still seemed so laughable.

[Nathan Jerpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

From The Misanthrope, p. 37 -

Sir, these are delicate matters; we all desire
To be told that we've the true poetic fire.
But once, to one whose name I shall not mention,
I said, regarding some verse of his invention,
That gentlemen should rigorously control
That itch to write which often afflicts the soul;
That one should curb the heady inclination
To publicize one's little avocation;
And that in showing off one's works of art
One often plays a very clownish part.

[James Hawdale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff. Moliere seems to know what he's doing with this, and going into the context that surrounds it lends a lot to the narrative of both plays. The Wilbur translation is the main thing here. He's really really captured the character of Moliere as a figure, who has this weird authorial presence despite his characters being so unique, andd seemingly so real. It's just a spark between lines, where you can see theplaywright looking at you, and Wilbur does it perfectly. Yeaaah

[Karoline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tartuffe: comical and economical. All the stock characters - the controlling mother, the duped husband, the pert maid, the modest maiden, her hotheaded brother, her gallant sweetheart, the one sage voice of reason - revolve around the slimy, greedy, sanctimonious, religious hypocrite Tartuffe and attempt to take him down. The much-tried wife meets cunning with cunning to finally unmask the serpent, and the King sets everything right in the nick of time.