Why do people like reading Molière?

Question

I have to do research for an French assignment. Can anybody help?? References to specific works would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I like reading Moliere because his plays are really really funny. My favorite play is "Tartuffe." It's about a religious con artist who plots to steal his gullible rich benefactor's property, marry the man's daughter and meanwhile do the wife also. Tartuffe is the guy you love to hate. I like his total depravity, his great philosophy of life (if nobody knows you did it, you didn't do it), his total lack of humanity.
The women are great characters. The servant Dorine seems the smartest, but the wife Elmire is very capable too. The sweet, helpless daughter makes a nice contrast, along with the obnoxious mother-i-law. I enjoy also the contrast between the hypocritical piety of Tartuffe and the common-sense virtues of the good characters.
The play's supposed flaws are part of its charm for me. Tartuffe doesn't come on stage until the play is half done, though everybody's talking about him. This makes the perfect situation for a dramatic entrance, with Tartuffe's fake penitential practices. He orders his servant: "Bring me my hair shirt, Flipote, and also my flagellator." And then the totally off-the-wall unbelievable rescue at the end. The king knew in an instant that Tartuffe was a hardened criminal!
[I understand this play offended the king in its original form, and had to be modified, I suppose the king wasn't smart enough in the original...]
And there's a happy ending for everybody except the bad guy!

Answer 2

I have not read Moliere in French since high school. But I love the Richard Wilbur translations. In college I played the lead in The Doctor in Spite of Himself, and later I played a small part in Moliere's generally acknowledged masterwork Tartuffe. My favorite Moliere, however, is The Misanthrope. He is perhaps the worlds greatest satirist