What was the significance of Molière as a comic dramatist?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, whose stage name was Molière, was France's leading comic dramatist. Learning much from the commedia dell'arte, a form of improvised Italian street theater that depended on buffoonery, slapstick humor, and pantomime, Molière's plays involve simple story lines that bring to life the comic foibles of such stock characters as the miser, the hypochondriac, the hypocrite, the misanthrope, and the would-be gentleman. His plays, by contrasting incidents of hypocrisy, pomposity, and greed with the solid good sense demonstrated, probe the excesses of passion and vanity that enfeeble human dignity. His famous work, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, is universal and timeless. The comedy, for all its farce, reflected the emerging class structure of early modern European society, with its firmly drawn lines between sexes and classes, its ambitions and high expectations.