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On February 17, 1673, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin — known to the world as Molière — collapsed during a performance of his own play, The Imaginary Invalid. He was playing a hypochondriac. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. Hours later, he was dead. And yet, 353 years on, every theater season proves this man simply refuses to leave the stage.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about Molière: he wasn't some dusty literary figure that schoolteachers force-feed you between geography and lunch. He was the seventeenth-century equivalent of a stand-up comedian who got cancelled — repeatedly — and kept coming back sharper each time. The Church wanted him silenced. The aristocracy wanted him humiliated. The doctors wanted him sued. He responded by writing plays that made all three groups look like absolute fools. And people loved it.

Let's talk about Tartuffe, the play that nearly destroyed him. Imagine writing a comedy about a religious con artist who worms his way into a wealthy family, seduces the wife, steals the estate, and does it all while quoting scripture. Now imagine performing it in 1664 France, where the Catholic Church had enough political power to ruin your life on a Tuesday afternoon. The play was banned — not once, but twice. King Louis XIV himself had to intervene to get it staged. Molière rewrote it three times over five years. Five years of battling censorship, death threats, and public condemnation. And what did he produce? One of the most performed comedies in human history. The word "tartuffe" entered the French language as a synonym for "hypocrite." When your fictional character becomes a dictionary entry, you've won.

But here's what makes Tartuffe terrifyingly relevant today: scroll through any social media feed and you'll find a dozen Tartuffes before breakfast. The influencer preaching minimalism from a mansion. The politician quoting family values while his third marriage collapses. The wellness guru selling detox teas that are essentially expensive laxatives. Molière didn't just write a play about religious hypocrisy — he wrote the blueprint for every grift that's followed since. The mechanism is identical: exploit people's desire to believe in something pure, wrap yourself in its language, and help yourself to whatever isn't nailed down.

Then there's The Misanthrope, which is arguably his masterpiece and definitely his cruelest joke. Alceste, the protagonist, is a man who despises social hypocrisy and insists on telling the truth at all times. Sounds heroic, right? Except Molière makes him insufferable. Alceste is self-righteous, exhausting, and — here's the knife twist — deeply in love with Célimène, the most socially manipulative woman in Paris. He hates everything she represents, and he can't stop wanting her. If that doesn't describe at least three people you know, you're not paying attention.

The Misanthrope asks a question that philosophy still hasn't answered satisfactorily: is brutal honesty a virtue or just another form of narcissism? When someone says "I'm just being honest" before demolishing your self-esteem, are they truth-tellers or sociopaths with good vocabulary? Molière didn't pick a side. He laughed at both — the liars and the truth-tellers — because he understood that humans are ridiculous from every angle.

And then there's The School for Wives, the play that kicked off the whole controversy machine. Arnolphe, a middle-aged control freak, raises a young girl in total isolation so she'll become his perfectly obedient wife. Naturally, the plan backfires spectacularly. Written in 1662, this is essentially a takedown of patriarchal ownership of women that wouldn't feel out of place in a modern feminist reading list. Molière caught hell for it — critics called it vulgar, immoral, an attack on marriage itself. He responded by writing The Critique of the School for Wives, a play about people arguing over his play. The man literally turned his haters into content. If that's not peak creative energy, I don't know what is.

What's genuinely remarkable about Molière is his method. He was an actor first, a writer second. He built his plays from the stage up, not from the page down. He watched audiences. He knew exactly when a pause would land, when a physical gag would elevate a verbal one, when silence was funnier than any punchline. This is why his comedies still work in performance when so many of his contemporaries read like furniture assembly instructions. Corneille and Racine wrote for posterity. Molière wrote for the laugh he needed on Thursday night.

His influence bleeds into everything we consider modern comedy. The sitcom structure — flawed characters trapped in social situations they've created for themselves — that's pure Molière. Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm is basically The Misanthrope set in Los Angeles. Every farce where someone hides in a closet while the wrong person walks in? Molière perfected that. Every comedy where the smartest person in the room is also the biggest disaster? That's his fingerprint.

But perhaps his most lasting contribution is the idea that comedy can be serious art. Before Molière, comedy was considered the lesser form — tragedy was where the real prestige lived. He fought that hierarchy his entire career, arguing that making people laugh at their own flaws was harder and more valuable than making them cry over fictional kings. He never fully won that argument in his lifetime. The Académie Française kept him at arm's length. The Church denied him a proper burial — his wife had to petition the king just to get him buried at night, in unconsecrated ground, with minimal ceremony.

Three hundred and fifty-three years later, the Comédie-Française — France's most prestigious theater — is still nicknamed "The House of Molière." His plays are performed more often than those of any other French playwright. The language itself bends around him: in France, French is sometimes called "the language of Molière," the way English is called "the language of Shakespeare." Not bad for a guy the establishment tried to bury in the dark.

So here's the uncomfortable truth Molière keeps whispering from his unmarked grave: we haven't changed. Not really. We still fall for charlatans dressed in virtue. We still confuse bluntness with integrity. We still try to control the people we claim to love. We still treat comedy as less important than tragedy, even though the comedian sees further than the tragedian ever could. Molière held up a mirror 353 years ago, and the reflection hasn't aged a day. The only question is whether we'll ever stop being funny enough to keep his plays relevant. My money says no.

On February 17, 1673, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin — known to the world as Molière — collapsed during a performance of his own play, "The Imaginary Invalid." He was playing the role of a hypochondriac. Let that sink in: the greatest satirist in French history died while mocking people who pretend to be sick. If that isn't the most brutally poetic exit in literary history, I don't know what is.

But here's the thing nobody tells you about Molière: he's not just some dusty name on a school syllabus. He's the reason half the comedy you consume today works the way it does. Three hundred and fifty-three years after his death, his fingerprints are all over our sitcoms, our political satire, our stand-up comedy, and — most uncomfortably — our mirrors.

Let's start with "Tartuffe," the play that nearly destroyed him. Written in 1664, it tells the story of a religious fraud who worms his way into a wealthy family by performing piety. The head of the household, Orgon, is so dazzled by Tartuffe's fake holiness that he hands over his property and nearly sacrifices his daughter to this con man. Sound familiar? It should. Every televangelist scandal, every cult leader exposé, every grifter who wraps their greed in moral language — they're all Tartuffe. The play was banned for five years because the Catholic Church and powerful religious societies saw themselves in it. Molière didn't just poke the bear; he climbed into the cage and started doing stand-up.

The backlash was spectacular. The Archbishop of Paris threatened excommunication for anyone who watched, performed, or even read the play. King Louis XIV, who privately loved it, had to publicly distance himself. Molière spent years rewriting and lobbying just to get it back on stage. When it finally premiered in its final form in 1669, it became the most successful play of his career. The lesson? Banning a book — or a play — is the best marketing strategy ever invented.

"The Misanthrope" is a different beast entirely, and honestly, it's the play that should terrify anyone who spends time on social media. Alceste, the protagonist, is a man who despises the superficiality and false politeness of society. He wants everyone to speak the raw, unfiltered truth at all times. He's the 17th-century equivalent of someone who writes "I'm just brutally honest" in their dating profile. And Molière's genius is showing us that Alceste is both completely right and absolutely insufferable. Society IS fake. People DO say things they don't mean. But the guy who makes it his entire personality to call this out? He's just as ridiculous as the phonies he attacks. Every Twitter warrior, every reply guy, every person who confuses rudeness with integrity — Molière saw you coming from 353 years away.

Then there's "The School for Wives," which in 1662 asked a question we're still wrestling with: what happens when a man tries to engineer the perfect, obedient woman? Arnolphe raises a young girl in complete isolation, deliberately keeping her ignorant so she'll be a docile wife. Naturally, she falls in love with someone else the moment a young man shows up. The play was a hand grenade lobbed into the gender politics of the era. Critics called it immoral. Rivals wrote entire counter-plays attacking it. But Molière understood something fundamental about human nature: you cannot cage someone into loving you. Control is the opposite of connection. This wasn't just progressive for the 1660s — there are people who still haven't figured this out.

What makes Molière genuinely dangerous, even now, is his method. He didn't write sermons. He didn't lecture. He made you laugh, and while your mouth was open, he shoved the truth down your throat. His hypocrites aren't monsters — they're your neighbor, your boss, your in-laws, yourself. Orgon isn't stupid; he's desperate to believe in something pure. Alceste isn't wrong; he's just lonely. Arnolphe isn't evil; he's terrified of being unloved. Molière gave us villains we could sympathize with, and that's far more unsettling than any cartoon bad guy.

His influence on comedy is so pervasive that it's become invisible. The comedy of manners? Molière perfected it. The sitcom structure where a rigid character is undone by their own obsession? That's Molière's blueprint. Larry David's entire career on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is essentially "The Misanthrope" set in Los Angeles. The satirical takedowns of religious hypocrisy in shows like "Righteous Gemstones"? They owe a debt to "Tartuffe" that they probably don't even realize. Even the basic comedic principle that the funniest characters are the ones with zero self-awareness — that's a Molière trademark.

Here's something that should bother you: the Catholic Church refused Molière a proper Christian burial. He died without last rites — the priest arrived too late, or perhaps conveniently so — and actors in 17th-century France were considered morally unfit for consecrated ground. His wife had to petition Louis XIV directly just to get him buried at night, with no ceremony, in a section of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. The man who gave France its greatest literary comedies was treated in death like an embarrassment. It took until the Revolution, over a century later, for his remains to be moved to a place of honor.

The French didn't just eventually forgive Molière — they made him a secular saint. The Comédie-Française, France's most prestigious theater, is literally nicknamed "La Maison de Molière." The French language itself is sometimes called "the language of Molière," the way English is "the language of Shakespeare." His plays are performed more frequently in France today than those of any other playwright. He went from being denied a grave to becoming the brand identity of an entire culture. That's not a comeback — that's an ascension.

But let's not turn him into a bronze statue. Molière was messy, complicated, and deeply human. He married Armande Béjart, who was either the daughter or the sister of his former lover Madeleine Béjart — nobody's entirely sure, and the ambiguity scandalized Paris. He was consumed by jealousy in his marriage, which fed directly into plays like "The School for Wives." He kept performing even as tuberculosis was literally killing him, coughing blood into handkerchiefs between scenes. The man lived his art with a commitment that borders on pathological.

So why should you care about a French playwright who's been dead for 353 years? Because every time you laugh at a hypocrite, every time you recognize that the loudest moralist in the room is usually the biggest fraud, every time you see a controlling person lose the very thing they tried to possess — you're living in Molière's world. He didn't just write plays. He wrote the operating system for how we understand human foolishness. And the terrifying part is that after three and a half centuries, not a single bug has been patched. We're still running on Molière's code, and we still can't stop crashing.