Médecine à la Molière

Abstract

Of Moliere's thirty six plays, seven deal, to a greater or lesser extent, with medicine; the medicine as practiced in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV. In these days, Moliere satirises the recalcitrant conservatism of the Paris medical faculty. It is, however, an informed satirisation. This paper explores Moliere's motives and attempts to place Moliere's medical plays against a broad canvas of his other works. The ultimate purpose is to assess to what extent Moliere's philosophical persuasions and how he balanced them against the needs of contemporary, commercial theatre.