Women and Irony in Moliere's Comedies of Marriage

This is a book about how Molière, France''s most celebrated author of comedies, made something strikingly new out of the traditional comedy plot of thwarted courtship. Though justly celebrated for his mastery of physical comedy and farce, one of Molière''s key moves was to pay attention to the way women could use language. Seventeenth-century France was a time when speaking well became exceptional...