Women in Molière’s Comedies: How Little Do You Know a Woman’s Heart!

The book proposes a new reading of Molière’s classical comedies, focused on a reassessment of his woman figures, who were hitherto surprisingly neglected and underrated. Rereading his work through a feminine lens sheds new light on the whole of his magnificent comedic enterprise. This book offers a new approach to the work of the great classical author. Molière’s is obviously a patriarchal world in which women are most often treated as objects of patriarchal autocracy, which expects their submission. Yet in a number of his plays, women display ample resourcefulness in countering the patriarchal rule, often managing to outwit it. To explore this topic, the book scrutinizes Molière’s most important comedies, The School for Wives, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and Don Juan, all of which feature complex female characters who play important roles. They show that Molière acknowledged a fully valid space for women and recognized their right to their own lives. As a prelude, the book analyzes two comedies from the margins of Molière’s oeuvre, The Ridiculous Précieuses and The Learned Ladies, which provoked controversy and indignant feminist criticism, since they appear to deride the emancipatory efforts of the time.