This book provides a practical and historical analysis of Moliere's comedies. Andrew Calder presents evidence and analysis to help modern readers to share the perspectives of the playwright's contemporaries. Chapter 1 to 10 define the mechanisms of comic drama, and offer answers to such questions as : what is a comic character? how does it function dramatically? how does it differ from a tragic character? what comic uses does Moliere make of domestic settings, of family relationships, of raisonneurs, servants, tyrannical parents and young lovers? what is the relationship of the character on stage to the world outside the text...to reader and audience? The nature and functions of plot and action, of reason, the ridiculous, judgment, laughter and excessive self-love are explored. Later chapters describe the satirical and historical settings of the major plays. All of Moliere's plays are discussed, but L'ecole des femmes, Le tartuffe, Don Juan, Le misanthrope, L'avare, Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Les femmes savantes and Le malade imaginaire are analyzed in particular detail.