French · 1622–1673
Molière, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was the foremost French comic dramatist of the seventeenth century. An actor-manager as well as a playwright, he founded the troupe that became the Comédie-Française. His plays — including Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The Miser, and The Imaginary Invalid — remain central to the Western theatrical repertoire.