For the 400th anniversary of Moliere's birth, Richard Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays--themselves towering achievements in English verse--are brought together by Library of America in a two-volume edition One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature. His verse translations of Molière's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theaters around the world. "Wilbur," the critic John Simon once wrote, "makes Molière into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one." Now, for the first time, all ten of Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays are brought together in two-volume Library of America edition, fulfilling the poet's vision for the translations. The second volume includes the elusive masterpiece, The Misanthrope, often said to occupy the same space in comedy as Shakespeare's Hamlet does in tragedy; the fantastic farce Amphitryon, about how Jupiter and Mercury commandeer the identities of two mortals ; Tartuffe, Molière's biting satire of religious hypocrisy; and The Learned Ladies, like Tarfuffe, a drama of a household turned suddenly upside down. This volume includes the original introductions by Richard Wilbur and a foreword by Adam Gopnik on the exquisite art of Wilbur's translations.

One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature. His verse translations of Moliere's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theatres around the world. 'Wilbur,' the critic John Simon once wrote, 'makes Moliere into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one.' Now, for the first time, all ten of Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Moliere's plays are brought together in two-volume Library of America edition, fulfilling the poet's vision for the translations.

Celebrates the human condition through reflections on nature and love, while a series of translations bring other authors' poems and riddles into a new light.

For the 400th anniversary of Moliere's birth, Richard Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays--themselves towering achievements in English verse--are brought together by Library of America in a two-volume edition One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature. His verse translations of Molière's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theaters around the world. "Wilbur," the critic John Simon once wrote, "makes Molière into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one." Now, for the first time, all ten of Wilbur's unsurpassed translations of Molière's plays are brought together in two-volume Library of America edition, fulfilling the poet's vision for the translations. This first volume comprises Molière's delightful early farces The Bungler, Lover's Quarrels, and The Imaginary Cuckhold, or Sganarelle; the comedies The School for Husbands and The School for Wives, about the efforts of middle-aged men to control their young wives or fiancés, which so delighted female theater goers in Moliere's seventeenth-century France; and Don Juan, Molière's retelling of the Don Juan story, performed only briefly in the playwright's lifetime before pious censure forced it to close and not part of the repertoire of the Comédie-Française until 1847. This volume includes the original introductions by Richard Wilbur and a foreword by Adam Gopnik on the exquisite art of Wilbur's translations.

In 1989 Richard Wilbur published New and Collected Poems, a landmark volume that won that year's Pulitzer Prize. Now, ten years later, he has prepared a collection of all the poetry he has written in the intervening years, together with new translations of Moliere (from Amphitryon) and Dante. These twenty-five poems reaffirm Wilbur's stature as one of our greatest living masters of verse.

This comprehensive collection presents new and never published poems by Richard Wilbur, author of 17 poetry collections, four children's books, and numerous works in prose and translations. Includes "In a Trackless Woods" and "The Reader", which are CCSS Curriculum Recommended texts.