SOURCE: “Molière's Bawdy,” in Nottingham French Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1994, pp. 124-32.

In this essay, Maber traces the sexual humor throughout Molière's works, distinguishing playwright's use of bawdy, a broad, obvious form of comedy, from his use of subtle double entendre, which requires some complicity from the audience for the humor to be realized.

Molière is one of the most accessible of all French writers, and arguably the most universal in his appeal; and yet at the same time he is one of the most elusive. From his own lifetime to the present day, he has been the subject of a great diversity of interpretations, of his own complex and multi-faceted personality as a man as much as his intentions as an author; and the same diversity of interpretation has of course always been brought to the performance of the plays.

The title of this paper...