The Bourgeois Gentleman

Molière · 1670 CE · Play · French · Enlightenment

A tradesman with money hires masters of music, dancing, fencing and philosophy to make a gentleman of himself, and is delighted to learn he has been speaking prose all his life. A count borrows from him steadily, and a Turkish embassy arrives at a convenient moment. A comédie-ballet made with Lully for the king's entertainment at Chambord, it survives as the sharpest thing written about a class buying its way upward.

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