Molière was more sharp in ridiculing members of the French court, and general customs, fashionable absurdities, affected speech, fake sentimentality, intrigues, nobles, doctors, priests, and religious bigotry.
Shakespeare engaged in more in more imagery than did Molière, but both were critics of power-holders. Molière, who regarded nothing as sacred, is equally if not more biting on hypocrisy and cant in plays with philosophical, religious, and moral implications.
The plays are not easy to perform. Shakespeare's plays are written partly in prose but largely in iambic pentameter, with its rhythms of stressed and unstressed syllables. Molière is difficult to translate into English because of his style of alexandrines and rhyming couplets.
Had to look that one up. FreeRepublic is like a continuing education program sometimes. In a good way.
The title of this piece grabbed my attention. Wonderful topic. The horrendous writing kept me from clicking on the full article.
Many of Shakespeare’s plays were written by Amelia Bassano Lanier, who was an Italian-Jewess. Shakespeare was an illiterate manager of a playhouse. See the books
Shakespeare’s Dark Lady by John Hudson
Shakespeare’s Conspiratory by Steve Weitxenkorn
Comparing Moliere to Shakespeare?
Next they’ll compare a sink full of water to the Pacific Ocean.
Molière sucks and worse he was French and wrote in French. Who speaks French these days. Would have been better had he written in Chinese.
I don’t really care if a fellow named Shakespeare wrote the plays ascribed to him; the dispute is a tempest in a teapot.
Whoever wrote them wrote some of the finest literature in any language
It is not really possible to compare Shakespeare with Moliere. Both were masters of their language and produced timeless plays, but they were writing in different languages and cultures with different literary traditions. Moliere writing in French in a stylized form with plays having great wit and nuance translates very poorly and the stories in his plays don’t have wider appeal of Shakespeare’s plays.
Many years ago I saw several Moliere plays staged at la Comédie-Française in Paris. While my French language skills were very challenged, I fell in love with Moliere’s poetry. To celebrate the 400 anniversary of Moliere’s birth, I plan on again challenging my French language skills watching videos of Moliere plays.