Jean Baptiste Moliere

JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIÈRE1622--1673From The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces Vol. 2, 7th edition, ed. Maynard Mack, et. al. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999) Son of a prosperous Paris merchant, Jean-Baptiste Molière (originally named Poquelin) devoted his entire adult life to the creation of stage illusion, as playwright and as actor. At about the age of twenty-five, he joined a company of traveling players established by the Béjart family; with them he …

…Orgon. The miracle occurs, given the benign world of comedy, but the play reminds its readers of the extreme precariousness with which reason finally triumphs, even given the presence of such reasonable people as Cléante and Elmire. Tartuffes monstrous lust, for women, money, power, genuinely endangers the social structure. Tartuffe enforces recognition of the constant threats to rationality, of how much we have at stake in trying to use reason as principle of action.