Translated by John Wood and David Coward with an introduction and notes by David Coward.
Such Foolish Affected Ladies/ Tartuffe/ The Misanthrope/ The Doctor Despite Himself/The Would-be Gentleman/ Those Learned Ladies
‘Let’s not worry about the manners of the age and make more allowance for human nature. Let’s judge it less severely and look more kindly on its faults’
The six plays collected in this volume illustrate Moliere’s broad range of comic devices, from satire and farce to slapstick and sophisticated wit and wordplay. In Tartuffe and The Doctor Despite Himself, Moliere shows us the foolishness of those taken in by a religious hypocrite and a bogus physician, while Such Foolish Affected Ladies and Those Learned Ladies are a humorous attack on the excessive refinement and pedantry of the Parisian smart set. And in The Misanthrope and The Would-Be Gentleman Moliere warn us of the dangers of obsession and intolerance. Exposing duplicity, mocking snobbery and revealing the horrors of hypocrisy, Moliere’s plays are masterly studies in the absurdities of human nature.
All of the humour and panache of the original French has been preserved in John Wood’s translation. In his introduction, David Coward discusses the reception each play received when it was first performed and how this has changed over the centuries. This edition also includes a chronology, bibliography and notes.
