Molière (1622 - 1673) was a French playwright, actor, and theatre director regarded as one of the founders of modern comic theatre. Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in Paris, he abandoned a bourgeois inheritance to lead a travelling troupe before winning royal patronage and a permanent stage in the capital [1]. His satirical comedies, including Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and The Miser, remain central works of the French repertoire [2].
Early life and education
Molière was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in Paris on 15 January 1622, the son of a prosperous upholsterer who held an appointment in the royal household [1]. He received a classical education at the Jesuit Collège de Clermont, later the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and is thought to have studied law at Orléans [1]. Rather than take up the trade or office his family expected, he chose a career in the theatre, adopting the stage name Molière around 1644 [2].
The travelling years
With members of the Béjart family he founded the Illustre Théâtre in Paris in 1643, but the company failed and left him briefly imprisoned for debt [1]. For roughly the next thirteen years he toured the French provinces with a troupe of actors, gaining the practical stagecraft and acquaintance with regional audiences that would shape his mature comedies [2]. During this period he began writing plays of his own, moving beyond the farce and Italian commedia dell'arte traditions that first influenced him.
Major works
Returning to Paris in 1658, Molière won the favour of the young Louis XIV and established his company at court and in city theatres. The success of Les Précieuses ridicules (1659) announced his gift for satirizing social affectation [1]. In the following years he produced the works on which his reputation rests, among them The School for Wives, Tartuffe, Don Juan, The Misanthrope, The Miser, and The Imaginary Invalid [2]. His comedies combined sharp observation of character with attacks on hypocrisy, pretension, and false piety. Tartuffe, which mocked religious hypocrisy, provoked such opposition from religious authorities that it was banned for several years before Molière secured permission to stage it [2].
Death and legacy
Molière performed to the end of his life. On 17 February 1673, while playing the title role in The Imaginary Invalid, he was seized by illness on stage and died a few hours later at his home in Paris [1]. Because actors were denied Christian burial without renouncing their profession, his interment took place quietly after the king's intervention [2]. His plays became foundational to the French theatrical tradition, and the Comédie-Française, established in 1680, is still known informally as "the House of Molière" [3]. He is widely counted among the greatest writers of comedy in Western literature.
