IV.

Assessment

French comedy since Molière is inseparable from his innovations. The Comédie Française, founded in 1680 as the first state-supported theater in France, has long been known as “the house of Molière.” The 18th-century dramatists Pierre Marivaux and Pierre Beaumarchais were deeply indebted to Molière—Marivaux in his use of sophisticated language and Beaumarchais with his biting satires—as were many of the comic writers of the 19th century. Critics in more recent times have detected Molière’s imprint on writers of the theater of the absurd in the 1950s and on other experimental movements.

The clearest evidence of the enduring legacy of Molière can be found in the French language itself. Just as one finds in English, Italian, and Spanish expressions from the works of William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, and Miguel de Cervantes, respectively, so the French use lines from Molière’s plays in everyday speech, often unaware of their source.