The first three acts ofMolière’sTartuffewere first performed for Louis XIV in 1664, but the play was almost immediately suppressed—not because the King disliked it, but because the church resented the insinuation that the pious were frauds. After several different versions were written and performed privately,Tartuffewas eventually published in its final five-act form in 1669.
A comic tale of man taken in by a sanctimonious scoundrel, the characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and...
