Moliere Dies

Moliere, the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673), was the foremost comic dramatist of French classical theater. He died in Paris in 1673, reportedly collapsing shortly after performing in his own play The Imaginary Invalid, a fitting end for a man wholly devoted to the stage as both writer and actor.

His celebrated comedies included Le Misanthrope and Les Femmes Savantes (The Learned Ladies), along with Tartuffe, The Miser, and The Bourgeois Gentleman. With sharp wit he satirized hypocrisy, pretension, social climbing, and the foibles of seventeenth-century French society.

Working under the patronage of King Louis XIV, Moliere transformed French comedy into a vehicle for serious social observation. His plays remain central to the repertoire of the Comedie-Francaise, the national theater company sometimes called the House of Moliere in his honor.