Tartuffe Or, The Hypocrite

Molière, 1622-1673Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.6

Word count: 102K words
Chapters: 11

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Tartuffe; Or, The Hypocrite by MolièreAuthor: Molière, 1622-1673,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 1, 2000

Editor's review

Tartuffe is one of Molière's most celebrated comedies. It revolves around how the pious fraud Tartuffe insinuates himself into Orgon's household, manipulates trust and nearly takes everything. With tight conflict and vivid stock characters, the play exposes the social harm of hypocrisy, closely combining comic technique with moral criticism; the dialogue is witty and the scenes highly theatrical, and it remains a frequently staged work. This electronic edition is an English translation from Project Gutenberg and serves as a good introductory text for approaching French classical comedy. Readers can enjoy the humor of misunderstandings and reversals while also seeing the satire of blind trust, parental authority and religious pretence. For readers studying dramatic structure or practising textual analysis, it is a work of moderate length with clear threads; for readers hoping to understand seventeenth-century French society and comic traditions, it also offers a typical sample. Note that the translation's language has a certain period flavor, and some cultural background requires notes to understand.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Introductory readers who want to know Molière's comedy and French classical drama
Students taking drama literature courses who need to analyze play structure
General readers interested in satirical comedy and the theme of hypocrisy
Readers who want to approach a classic English translation in a shorter length

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting modern novel-style narrative and detailed psychological description
Readers with no English reading experience who need sentence-by-sentence Chinese comparison
Readers who prefer fast-paced plots and have little patience for dramatic dialogue form

Reading tips

First read through to grasp the main line of conflict, then revisit the dialogue and reversals in key scenes.
While reading, note how Orgon's trust is gradually exploited and sketch a character relationship chart.
You may combine the religious and family background of Molière's time to understand the target of satire.
If English is difficult, read alongside a Chinese translation or watch a stage performance for support.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this edition in Chinese or English?

This electronic edition is an English translation from Project Gutenberg. Readers with weaker English can read it alongside a Chinese translation, first understanding the plot and then returning to the English text.

Can I read it without experience in reading drama?

Yes. The play's conflicts are concentrated and its character types are distinct, so the entry threshold is not high. It is advisable to first understand the relationships among the characters, then read scene by scene, imagining the dialogue as conversation on stage.

What background should I know when reading?

Understanding the importance of religious piety in seventeenth-century French society, the place of parental authority in the family, and the satirical tradition of Molière's comedy will make the play's conflicts and humor easier to understand.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Molière, 1622-1673 Author

Molière (1622-1673), born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was a leading figure of French classical comedy and worked in the seventeenth-century French theatre as both actor and playwright. The library holds 41 of his works, including such representative plays as Tartuffe, The Miser, and Don Juan, ou le Festin de pierre, as well as multi-volume editions of his complete works. Drawing on everyday life, his comedies expose hypocrisy, greed, and vanity with exaggerated yet incisive satire; his characters are vividly drawn and his dialogue witty and lively, conveying criticism of social ills through laughter. Public information on his early life and education is limited, so no speculation is offered here. His plays have had a profound influence on French and European theatre history and are still frequently staged today.