Influenced by Plautus and Terence, as well as utilizing the farcical inventiveness of Commedia dell'arte, Molière emerged as the quintessential writer who focuses his attention on a type of person and, by magnifying their flaw, turns them into a symbol and a cautionary example.

“The Imaginary Invalid” is the swan song of the foremost comic playwright and a representative of French classicism. He wrote it while he was himself ill and tormented by the doctors of the time.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]