This volume includes the original introductions by Richard Wilbur and a foreword by Adam Gopnik on the exquisite art of Wilbur's translations. This first volume comprises Molière's delightful early farces The Bungler, Lover's Quarrels, and The Imaginary Cuckhold, or Sganarelle the comedies The School for Husbands and The School for Wives, about the efforts of middle-aged men to control their young wives or fiancés, which so delighted female theater goers in Moliere's seventeenth-century France and Don Juan, Molière's retelling of the Don Juan story, performed only briefly in the playwright's lifetime before pious censure forced it to close and not part of the repertoire of the Comédie-Française until 1847. 'Wilbur,' the critic John Simon once wrote, 'makes Molière into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one.' Now, for the first time, all ten of Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays are brought together in two-volume Library of America edition, fulfilling the poet's vision for the translations.

His verse translations of Molière's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theaters around the world. One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature.

Frank Foundation.For the 400th anniversary of Moliere's birth, Richard Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays-themselves towering achievements in English verse-are brought together by Library of America in a two-volume edition Lead funding for The School for Husbands and The Imaginary Cuckold was made possible with support from the Sidney E. Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood, in February of 2010. Includes an interview with actor Brian Bedford. Theatre Works full-cast performances featuring:Ĭhristopher Neame as Magistrate/Gros-ReneĪlan Shearman as Villebriquin/Madame Ralative Producing Director Susan Albert Loewenberg In The Imaginary Cuckold, an enraged husband imagines his wife is unfaithful, but is reluctant to defend his honor. In The School for Husbands, a tyrannical husband-to-be seeks to isolate his ward, while unwittingly carrying her messages of devotion to her lover. Among Molire's best-known dramas are Le Misanthrope, (The Misanthrope), L'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur, (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite.

The Imaginary Cuckold and The School for Husbands are two of his grand farces of marriage and misunderstanding, one set in Paris and the other in the provinces. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known by his stage name, Molire, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Molière wrote some of the most durable and penetrating comedies of all time.

Moliere richard wilbur