L’École des femmes [The School for Wives], a comedy in five acts and alexandrine verse, was first performed on 26 December 1662 at the Palais Royal for Monsieur, the younger brother of Louis XIV. It marks Molière’s creation of the “new” or “grand” French comedy. This masterpiece continues to be produced, read, loved, and imitated, with adaptations in many languages and cultures. It established Molière’s fame and paved the way for his later dramatic comedies: Le Tartuffe, ou l’imposteur [Tartuffe, or the Impostor], Le Misanthrope [The Misanthrope], and L’Avare [The Miser].
The contemporary success of L’École des femmes was due in part to its adherence to the theatrical unities, the ideal of seventeenth-century French classical tragedy: unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time. Molière was extremely familiar with these systematic constraints. As...
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Citation: Angelini, Eileen. "L'Ecole des femmes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4187, accessed 09 June 2026.]
