Tartuffe

by Moliere

Martin Sorrell (Translator)

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

Moliere's comic masterpiece about an irreclaimable hypocrite - one of the most famous French plays of all time.

The pious Tartuffe is lodging with Orgon and his family, ingratiating himself with both his host and his host's mother to such a degree that both are blinded to his true – rather less virtuous – designs. Like marrying Orgon's daughter Mariane, whilst seducing his wife, Elmire.

This English version of Tartuffe, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated and introduced by Martin Sorrell.

• ISBN10: 1854596373
• ISBN13: 9781854596376
• Publish Date: 22 February 2002
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Nick Hern Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 118
• Language: English

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Surprisingly fun and light-hearted play. Tartuffe was a play banned in the time Molière wrote it (Molière being the pen name of some French dude in the end of the 17th century). It supposedly bashed all religious efforts, but when reading this it was clear to me Molière only strongly disliked religious hypocrites.

Tartuffe is a quick read. It has everything from drama to humour, young lovers that can't be together, a father with his head in his ass, a snarky lady companion, and of course a disgusting villain that goes unnoticed by the man of the house. As it's a play, it was a very quick read. As I read the Dutch translation I have no idea what the French it was written in was like, but the Dutch language was very easy to read. It took me a while to keep track of all the characters (especially since some of the French names confused me - like Orgon and Damis), but once I formed an image for all the characters, their interactions were highly amusing.

As intriguing as watching a soap opera on TV, Tartuffe is a pretty awesome piece of fiction that's still as funny and clever (and true) as it was when it was written over three-hundred years ago.