The Pulitzer Prize winner's classic translations of Moliere's comic masterpieces satirizing shallowness, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.
The Misanthrope is a searching comic study of falsity, shallowness, and self-righteousness through the character of Alceste, a man whose conscience and sincerity are too rigorous for his time. In Tartuffe, a wily, opportunistic swindler manipulates a wealthy prude and bigot through his claims of piety. This latter translation earned Wilbur a share of the Bollingen Translation Prize for his critically acclaimed work of this satiric take on religious hypocrisy.
In brilliant rhymed couplets, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur renders two of seventeenth-century French playwright Moliere's comic masterpieces into English, capturing not only the form and spirit of the language but also its substance.
"Mr. Wilbur has given us a sound, modern, conversational poetry and has made Moliere's The Misanthrope brilliantly our own." —The New York Times Book Review
"Richard Wilbur's translation of Tartuffe is a continuous delight from beginning to end." —Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning poet Richard Eberhart