Misanthrope and Tartuffe by Molière

<b>In brilliant rhymed couplets Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur renders two of seventeenth-century French playwright Moliere's comic masterpieces into English capturing not only the form and spirit of the language but also its substance.</b> <p/><i>The Misanthrope</i> is a searching comic study of falsity shallowness and self-righteousness through the character of Alceste a man whose conscience and sincerity are too rigorous for his time. <p/> In <i>Tartuffe</i> a wily opportunistic swindler manipulates a wealthy prude and bigot through his claims of piety. This latter translation earned Wilbur a share of the Bollingen Translation Prize for his critically-acclaimed work of this satiric take on religious hypocrisy. <p/> Mr. Wilbur has given us a sound modern conversational poetry and has made Moliere's The Misanthrope brilliantly our own.--<i>The New York Times Book Review</i> <br>