Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière (1622-1673), was the preeminent French comic playwright, and most of his thirty-three works survive triumphantly to this day on international stages.
Influenced by the Romans Plautus and Terence, as well as by commedia dell'arte, he transformed human types into characters, exaggerating them with satirical wit while also coloring them with considerable bitterness.
The 'Miser', 'Tartuffe', 'The Imaginary Invalid', and 'The Bourgeois Gentleman' are among his most well-known masterpieces. Amid triumphs and attacks, being an actor himself, Molière lived among the people and drew inspiration from them, also gaining the favor of King Louis XIV.
The national French theater, the renowned 'Comédie Française', bears the honorary name 'House of Molière'.
