Controversy in French Drama ― MoliFre's Tartuffe and the Struggle for Influence

In 1664, Moliere'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 regime 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 devot) and the hypocrite (faux devot). 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.

Julia Prest is Senior Lecturer in the Department of French at the University of St Andrews, UK. She has published critical editions of Le Mariage force (1999) and La Devineresse (2007), as well as numerous articles on early-modern drama and culture. Her first book was Theatre under Louis XIV: Cross-Casting and the Performance of Gender in Drama, Ballet, and Opera (2006/2013).