Controversy in French drama: Molière's Tartuffe and the struggle for influence

In 1664, Molière's Tartuffe was banned from public performance. This book provides a detailed, in-depth account of the five-year struggle (1664-69) to have the ban lifted and, so doing, sheds important new light on 1660s France and the ancien régime more broadly. By drawing on theatrical and non-theatrical writings (including contemporary sermons, treatises, and memoirs), it changes the terms of the debate by challenging received notions regarding the opposition between the sincere believer (vrai dévot) and the hypocrite (faux dévot). Tartuffe was a key locus for the struggle for influence among competing political and religious factions during the early reign of Louis XIV, and the lifting of the ban in 1669 is understood as an act of political assertion on the part of an increasingly confident king.