Molière
24 Apr, 2025
840 French and related literatures
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great figures in world literature. The French playwright Moliere (1622-1673) began as an actor, aiming to be a tragedian, but he was stronger in comedy, touring with a troupe for 13 years until Louis XIV summoned him to audition at the Louvre and gave him his break. It was in Paris and at Versailles that Moliere wrote and performed his best known plays, among them Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Le Malade Imaginaire, and in time he was so celebrated that French became known as The Language of Moliere.
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
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Noel Peacock No other episodes
Emeritus Marshall Professor in French Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow -
Jan Clarke No other episodes
Professor of French at Durham University -
Joe Harris No other episodes
Professor of Early Modern French and Comparative Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Reading list
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The Cambridge Companion to Moliere
David Bradby and Andrew Calder (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Google Books → -
Moliere in Context
Jan Clarke (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2022) Google Books → -
Moliere
Georges Forestier (Gallimard, 2018) -
Moliere: Reasoning with Fools
Michael Hawcroft (Oxford University Press, 2007) Google Books → -
Women and Irony in Moliere's Comedies of Mariage
John D. Lyons (Oxford University Press, 2023) Google Books → -
Le Nouveau Molieriste
Robert McBride and Noel Peacock (eds.) (University of Glasgow Presw, 1994-) Google Books → -
The Public Mirror: Moliere and the Social Commerce of Depiction
Larry F. Norman (University of Chicago Press, 1999) Google Books → -
Moliere sous les feux de la rampe
Noel Peacock (Hermann, 2012) -
Controversy in French Drama: Moliere's Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence
Julia Prest (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Google Books → -
Moliere: A Theatrical Life
Virginia Scott (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Google Books →
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Programme ID: m002b701
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002b701
Auto-category: 842.4 (French drama - 17th century)