Moliere was born in Paris on January 15, 1622, the son of a wealthy tapestry maker. From an early age he was completely devoted to the theater. In 1643 he joined a theatrical company established by the Bejarts, a family of professional actors; he married one of the members of the family, Armande Bejart, in 1662. The troupe, which Moliere named the Illustre Theatre, played in Paris until 1645 and then toured the provinces for 13 years, returning to Paris in 1658. On their return Louis XIV lent the troupe his support and offered them occasional use of the Theatre du Petit-Bourbon and, in 1661, use of the playhouse in the Palais-Royal. Secure at the Palais-Royal, “Moliere for the rest of his life committed himself entirely to the comic theater, as dramatist, actor, producer, and director” (Encarta 96).

In 1659 the company presented Moliere's Les precieuses ridicules (The Affected Young Ladies). Written in a style similar to that of the older farces, it satirizes the pretension

Neoclassical drama did not become common until the 1630s with the dramas of Pierre Corneille and, later, of Jean Baptiste Racine. Under the influence of Cardinal Richelieu, neoclassical doctrine was strictly enforced, and the French Academy for violating the proprieties of decorum and verisimilitude, although enormously popular, condemned Corneille’s Le Cid (1636 or 1637). Racine's plays successfully combine the formal beauties of neoclassical structure and verse with mythological subjects to create lofty, rugged dramas (Encarta 96).

Moliere's satires, directed against social conventions that thwart nature, give a more accurate portrait of contemporary French society than do the serious dramas of his contemporaries Pierre Corneille and Jean Baptiste Racine. Although his stock characters and comic effects were borrowed from older traditions—from the comedies of the Greek writer Aristophanes, from the Roman comedy of Terence and Plautus, and from the Italian commedia dell'arte—he gave psychological depth to his misers, lovers, hypocrites, and social climbers. “A master of slapstick, he yet contrived to maintain an underlying note of pathos.” Like the troupes of Italian actors who performed regularly in Paris during the 17th century, Moliere's company was trained to extract the full potential from the stock characters portrayed. This training included the study of appropriate facial expressions, gestures, and gags. Thus, “Moliere's comedies can be appreciated to the fullest when acted by a brilliant, disciplined company, such as the famous Comedie Francaise, the national theater of France.” Established in 1680 through a merger of the Illustre Theatre and rival troupes, it is still familiarly known as the Theater of Moliere (Britannica 91).

On the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 Louis XIV announced that from this time on he would be his own first minister. For the next 54 years he ruled France personally and conscientiously and established himself as the model of the divine right, absolutist monarch in the European Age of Absolutism. Early in the period of his personal rule Louis established the structure of the absolute state. He organized a num

Some common words found in the essay are:
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