In the Library
Tartuffe
Molière, 1664
- Form
- Form Play
- Reading time
- Reading time 1.5 hours
- Translated by
- Translated by Curtis Hidden Page
- Chapters
- Chapters 7
- Length
- Length 19k words
£1.99
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About the book
A pious stranger arrives at the house of Orgon, a wealthy Parisian, and within months has so thoroughly bewitched the master that Orgon is ready to give him his daughter, his fortune, and the house itself. Molière first staged this comedy in 1664 before Louis XIV, after which the archbishop banned it for five years as an attack on religion. The play insists otherwise: it is an attack on those who use religion as a costume for greed, lust, and the appetite for power. Tartuffe is a creature of pure performance, sniffing his own piety, refusing meat to be seen refusing it, then lunging at Orgon's wife when no one is watching. The comedy stings because the household sees what the master cannot.