Tartuffe
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40 free Tartuffe trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tartuffe is the comedy that landed Molière in the biggest row of his career. A pious-seeming stranger worms his way into a wealthy Paris household, charms its master and sets about ruining him, while the rest of the family looks on in disbelief. The devout were furious, the court was divided, and the play spent years under a ban before the public could see it. This quiz covers the plot scene by scene, the characters and who is related to whom, the row over the early performances, and what became of the play afterwards: the translations, the screen versions and the famous productions. A few questions look at Molière himself. It suits students revising the play for a French or drama class, theatre-goers who have just seen a production, and anyone who likes a classic comedy with real bite. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01In Molière's Tartuffe, where does Orgon hide to overhear the title character trying to seduce his wife?
Under a table
Under a table is where Orgon crouches at his wife's urging, and he crawls out only when Tartuffe's advances leave no room for doubt. It takes that much to shake a faith no argument had dented.
Q 02Thanks to Molière's play, calling someone a tartuffe in French or English brands them as what?
A hypocrite
A hypocrite is the meaning, above all one who makes a show of religious virtue. The character was so vivid that his name became an everyday noun in two languages.
Q 03Which French king enjoyed Tartuffe at its 1664 court premiere yet banned Molière's comedy from public stages?
Louis XIV
Louis XIV found the play highly diverting, but ruled that sham piety and true devotion looked too alike on stage for public showing. He went on shielding Molière from his clerical enemies all the same.
Q 04What penalty did the Archbishop of Paris threaten for anyone who watched, acted in or read Molière's Tartuffe?
Excommunication
Excommunication was the threat in Archbishop Péréfixe's edict, which covered readers as well as actors and audiences. Private showings for aristocrats carried on regardless.
Q 05Molière, the author of Tartuffe, collapsed on stage in 1673 while acting in which of his own comedies?
The Hypochondriac
The Hypochondriac, also called The Imaginary Invalid, cast Molière as a healthy man convinced he is ill, while the actor himself had tuberculosis. He finished the show and died at home hours later.
Q 06Molière, author of Tartuffe, was the stage name of which Parisian who gave up law for the theatre?
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin adopted the name Molière in his early twenties, after quitting the family trade for the stage. He probably did it to spare his father the shame of an actor in the family.
Q 07Molière apparently took the name Tartuffe from an old French word for which food, hinting at concealment?
Truffle
Truffle is the apparent root, from Old French tartuffe; a fungus that grows hidden underground suits a man who conceals his real nature. Italian tartufo, another proposed source, means the same thing.
Q 08The King's sudden rescue of Orgon in the final scene of Tartuffe is a famous example of which plot device?
Deus ex machina
Deus ex machina fits because a monarch who never appears on stage fixes everything. His officer arrives beside Tartuffe to arrest Orgon, then seizes the fraud instead.
Q 09In Tartuffe's first scene on stage, what does he hand the maid, telling her to cover her bosom?
A handkerchief
A handkerchief comes out of his pocket before the maid can deliver her message, a show of modesty she mocks at once. The same man is propositioning his host's wife one scene later.
Q 10Where did Molière first stage Tartuffe in 1664, during a lavish festival laid on for the royal court?
Versailles
Versailles hosted the first performance in May 1664, part of a festival called The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island. That three-act version was never printed, and its text is now lost.
Q 11Tartuffe is the single most performed play in the history of which Paris company, founded in 1680?
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française grew out of Molière's own troupe, merged with its rivals seven years after his death. It is still nicknamed the House of Molière.
Q 12Which character in Molière's Tartuffe is Orgon's second wife, the woman the title fraud tries to seduce?
Elmire
Elmire is the one who finally opens her husband's eyes, by staging a second meeting with Tartuffe while Orgon listens in hiding. She is stepmother to his two grown children.
Q 13Which sharp-tongued maid in Molière's Tartuffe reconciles the young lovers and plots to unmask the title fraud?
Dorine
Q 21Which German silent-era director filmed Molière's Tartuffe in 1926 as a film within a film?
F. W. Murnau
F. W. Murnau, four years after Nosferatu, framed the play as a film a young actor screens to warn his grandfather about a scheming housekeeper.
Q 22Which American poet made the rhymed English translation of Tartuffe used by Britain's National Theatre in 1967?
Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur, a two-time Pulitzer winner, kept the play in rhymed verse rather than prose. He also wrote lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide.
Q 23Kirke Mechem's Tartuffe, premiered in San Francisco in 1980, retells Molière's play in which form?
An opera
Dorine mocks Orgon's marriage plan for his daughter so relentlessly that he swings a hand at her, and misses. No one else in the house dares speak to him so bluntly.
Q 14Which daughter of Orgon is told to break her engagement and marry Tartuffe in Molière's comedy?
Mariane
Mariane is too dutiful to defy her father outright, so it falls to the maid to stiffen her resolve. She ends the play free to marry the man she chose.
Q 15Which hot-headed son of Orgon bursts from a closet to accuse Tartuffe, only to be banished himself?
Damis
Damis catches Tartuffe wooing his stepmother and runs to tell his father. The fraud then confesses to being a wretched sinner so humbly that Orgon takes his side and throws the boy out.
Q 16After banishing his own son in Molière's Tartuffe, what does Orgon sign over to the title character?
All his property
All his property goes to Tartuffe by deed of gift, which is why the fraud can later send a bailiff to evict the family. Only a royal order cancelling the deed saves the house.
Q 17In which act of Molière's five-act comedy does Tartuffe himself first walk on stage, after much talk about him?
The third
The third act is the first to show him, so for two acts the audience knows Tartuffe only through a family quarrelling about him. He enters barking pious orders to his servant.
Q 18Which young suitor is engaged to Orgon's daughter before Orgon promises her to Tartuffe instead?
Valère
Valère quarrels with his fiancée over the news, each too proud to admit caring. He later hurries to warn Orgon that a warrant is out for his arrest, and wins his bride for it.
Q 19Which relative of Orgon opens Molière's Tartuffe by scolding the whole household and praising the title fraud?
Madame Pernelle
Madame Pernelle, Orgon's mother, is the last to see through Tartuffe, still defending him after her son has seen the proof himself. In the first production the old lady was played by a man.
Q 20Which brother-in-law of Orgon serves as the calm voice of reason throughout Molière's Tartuffe?
Cléante
Cléante argues for a middle way, urging Orgon not to scorn every devout person because one proved a fraud. Critics call this kind of level-headed adviser the raisonneur.
An opera in three acts, it sets Mechem's own English libretto in the comic opera buffa style while keeping the action in 17th-century Paris.
Q 24Which Russian director was rehearsing an unfinished production of Molière's Tartuffe when he died in 1938?
Konstantin Stanislavski
Konstantin Stanislavski, co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, left the staging to his pupil Mikhail Kedrov, who finished it and opened it in December 1939.
Q 25With Tartuffe banned, Molière quickly wrote which play about an atheist nobleman to fill the gap in 1665?
Dom Juan
Dom Juan shows an atheist who turns religious fraud and is punished by God, which only fed the row. It too was soon suspended, and Molière never staged it again.
Q 26In Molière's Tartuffe, how does Orgon's wife signal her hidden husband as the title fraud presses his advances?
She coughs loudly
She coughs loudly, again and again, yet Orgon stays hidden so long that Tartuffe kindly offers her a piece of liquorice for her cold.
Q 27According to Orgon in Molière's Tartuffe, where did he first come across the penniless title character each day?
In church
In church, Tartuffe would kneel opposite Orgon, sigh and kiss the ground, then run ahead to offer him holy water at the door. Orgon took the show for saintliness and brought him home.
Q 28What evidence does Tartuffe hand the King to get Orgon arrested, having learned of it in confidence?
An exiled friend's papers
An exiled friend's papers, left with Orgon in a strongbox for safekeeping, were enough to brand him a traitor. He had told Tartuffe about them, and the fraud made off with the box.
Q 29Which colour do French actors shun, a superstition said to date from Molière's costume at his final performance?
Green
Green is what he is said to have been wearing when he fell ill on stage in 1673, hours before he died. French theatre folk have treated the colour as unlucky ever since.
Q 30Which bailiff arrives in Molière's Tartuffe with a court order turning Orgon's family out of their own house?
Monsieur Loyal
Monsieur Loyal serves the eviction with oily politeness, claiming he once served Orgon's father. The maid is quick to mock how badly his name fits him.