The School for Wives

Molière · 1662 CE · Play · French · Enlightenment

A man of forty-two has had a girl raised in a convent in deliberate ignorance so that she will make an unteachable wife, and now brings her home to marry her. She meets a young man in the street and reports every step of the courtship to her guardian, who has to stand and listen. The five-act verse comedy raised the question of whether comedy could carry serious matter, and the quarrel it started ran two years and produced two further plays written in its defence.

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Lineage

• influenced by ↑ The Decameron
  Giovanni Boccaccio · c. 1353 CE · Short Story

Attributes

Closest analogues

• The Learned Ladies
  Molière · 1672 CE · Play

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• The Miser
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• Tootsie
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• The Barber of Seville
  Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais · 1775 CE · Play

  61% · 15 shared
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• The Misanthrope
  Molière · 1666 CE · Play

  61% · 14 shared
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• The Imaginary Invalid
  Molière · 1673 CE · Play

  61% · 14 shared
  PlayComedySatireLoveAppearance vs RealityObsessionEnlightenmentLoverTricksterComic Resolutionvs PersonComicSatiricalFrench