A nicely coupled pair of plays by Corneille, both translated by Richard Wilbur. The first is Le Cid, a romance/tragicomedy about the clash between honor and love in the court of a king in medieval Spain. It's a very good drama but it doesn't feel like it's telling universal truths -- it is hard to relate to loving someone but also having to kill them because they killed your father, albeit after your father killed their father. That sort of thing. You get the idea.

The second is The Liar, which reads more like Moliere -- and according to the introduction was an influence on Moliere. It is a hilarious farce about an extravagant serial liar who can't even keep his own lies straight -- and these get him to the point that even when he is telling the truth people stop believing him. The servants are also tricky, but much better able to control their trickery and deploy it towards useful ends. All ends happily without any moral comeuppance for the liar or collateral damage from his lies. ( )

A nicely coupled pair of plays by Corneille, both translated by Richard Wilbur. The first is Le Cid, a romance/tragicomedy about the clash between honor and love in the court of a king in medieval Spain. It's a very good drama but it doesn't feel like it's telling universal truths -- it is hard to relate to loving someone but also having to kill them because they killed your father, albeit after your father killed their father. That sort of thing. You get the idea.

The second is The Liar, which reads more like Moliere -- and according to the introduction was an influence on Moliere. It is a hilarious farce about an extravagant serial liar who can't even keep his own lies straight -- and these get him to the point that even when he is telling the truth people stop believing him. The servants are also tricky, but much better able to control their trickery and deploy it towards useful ends. All ends happily without any moral comeuppance for the liar or collateral damage from his lies. ( )