How did Molière develop his satirical style?
Develop? One does not 'develop' a style as one might a disease! One *observes*. I watched, my friend, with eyes wide open, the parades of fools strutting across the salons and the public squares. I listened to their pronouncements, their boasts, their petty jealousies. My method was simple: to take these observed follies and present them on the stage, magnified perhaps, but fundamentally true. The exaggerated hypocrisy of a Tartuffe, the ridiculous medical pronouncements in *The Imaginary Invalid* – these are not flights of fancy, but distillations of the absurdity I witnessed daily. The laughter of the audience, when it comes, is their own recognition of the truth.