The Misanthrope
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40 free The Misanthrope trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Molière's The Misanthrope has been making audiences uneasy since 1666. Its hero, Alceste, insists on saying exactly what he thinks, and he is in love with Célimène, the one person in Paris least likely to do the same. Whether he is a man of principle or simply impossible company is a question the play never settles, which is why directors keep coming back to it. This quiz covers the story act by act: the quarrels, the rival suitors, the lawsuit and the final scene. It also looks at the people who first performed the play, the writers who argued over it, and the translators, poets and film stars who have brought it to London and Broadway stages since. It suits students reading the play for a French or drama course, theatre-goers brushing up before a new production, and anyone who enjoys classic stage comedy. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01The title of Molière's The Misanthrope comes from two Greek words meaning hatred of what?
Mankind
Mankind is the target: the word joins the Greek misos, hatred, to anthropos, human being, the root that also gives English anthropology.
Q 02Which film star made her West End debut in 2009 in Martin Crimp's modern version of The Misanthrope?
Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley played Jennifer, an American film star, opposite Damian Lewis at London's Comedy Theatre.
Q 03The Misanthrope opened in 1666 under which French king, builder of Versailles and Molière's patron?
Louis XIV
Louis XIV backed the playwright so firmly that in 1664 he stood godfather to his firstborn son.
Q 04What does Célimène refuse to do at the end of The Misanthrope, losing Alceste's offer of marriage?
Leave society with him
Leave society with him is the one thing she cannot accept: at twenty, she says, solitude frightens her, so Alceste goes off alone.
Q 05Armande Béjart, the first Célimène in The Misanthrope in 1666, had what real-life tie to Molière?
She was his wife
She was his wife, some twenty years his junior, and he played the jealous Alceste opposite her.
Q 06Which Molière comedy about a pious fraud had already been banned when he wrote The Misanthrope?
Tartuffe
Tartuffe was banned in 1664 after its first showing at Versailles, and the fight to stage it in public dragged on for five years.
Q 07Molière, The Misanthrope's first Alceste, collapsed in 1673 while acting in which of his own plays?
The Imaginary Invalid
The Imaginary Invalid cast him as a hypochondriac; seized by a coughing fit on stage, he finished the show and died hours later.
Q 08What kind of poem does a vain courtier read to Alceste in Act I of The Misanthrope?
A sonnet
A sonnet it is, and Alceste's blunt verdict so offends its powerful author that he is summoned to answer for the insult.
Q 09Which philosopher's 1758 essay on theatre attacked The Misanthrope for making fun of Alceste?
Rousseau
Rousseau called the play Molière's best work, yet hated that audiences were invited to laugh at Alceste's high ideals.
Q 10Which Avengers TV star earned a 1975 Tony nomination as Célimène in The Misanthrope on Broadway?
Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg came over with the National Theatre production from London's Old Vic, playing opposite Alec McCowen's Alceste.
Q 11Which easy-going friend of Alceste in The Misanthrope argues that polite society needs tact?
Philinte
Philinte, first played by the actor La Grange, serves as Alceste's foil: he sees the same faults in people and simply shrugs.
Q 12Which courtier's love poem does Alceste scorn in The Misanthrope, landing both men before a tribunal?
Oronte
Oronte claims he dashed the verses off in a quarter of an hour, and he is also one of Alceste's rivals for Célimène.
Q 13Which prude in The Misanthrope lectures Célimène on her reputation, then pursues Alceste herself?
Arsinoé
Arsinoé gets as good as she gives: Célimène answers her friendly warning with an equally sweet account of what people say about prudes.
Q 21Molière wrote The Misanthrope in which twelve-syllable line, the staple of French classical drama?
The alexandrine
The alexandrine carries its main stresses on the sixth and last syllables, which gives every line a pause at the midpoint.
Q 22Molière's The Misanthrope helped define which stage genre, later a hallmark of Restoration London?
Comedy of manners
Comedy of manners mocks the codes of a fashionable class, here the salons of Paris, where a white lie counts as good breeding.
Q 23Which Paris playhouse staged the first performance of Molière's The Misanthrope on 4 June 1666?
The Palais-Royal
Q 14Which cousin of Célimène in The Misanthrope first admires Alceste, then accepts another man's hand?
Éliante
Éliante is the sincere one of the play's women, and her match with Alceste's best friend gives the comedy its one happy couple.
Q 15What status lets Célimène in The Misanthrope receive a crowd of suitors in her own Paris home?
A young widow
A young widow of twenty, she answers to no father or husband, which is why Alceste can only argue with her, never forbid her.
Q 16How is Célimène finally exposed in the last act of The Misanthrope, to the fury of her suitors?
Her letters are read aloud
Her letters are read aloud by two suitors who compare notes: each had been promised her heart, and each finds himself mocked in the other's copy.
Q 17How does Célimène amuse her guests in Act II of The Misanthrope, to Alceste's disgust?
Mocking absent friends
Mocking absent friends is her party piece: she skewers one acquaintance after another, and Alceste blames the laughing courtiers for egging her on.
Q 18Which body of high officers summons Alceste in The Misanthrope to settle his quarrel over a poem?
The Marshals of France
The Marshals of France get no retraction: Alceste will only say he is sorry he cannot like the verses, and the two men are made to make peace.
Q 19In The Misanthrope, Célimène privately mocks Alceste as the man who wears ribbons of which colour?
Green
Green ribbons are her nickname for him; knots of ribbon were high fashion for young noblemen at the time, worn even with military dress.
Q 20In The Misanthrope, what does Alceste recite to show a courtier what honest love poetry sounds like?
An old popular song
An old popular song, about a lover who would turn down the king's gift of Paris to keep his sweetheart, beats the courtier's wordplay in Alceste's view.
The Palais-Royal was the troupe's home stage, and most of Molière's best-known comedies opened there, The Miser among them.
Q 24Molière, author of The Misanthrope, was the stage name of which Paris furniture merchant's son?
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was baptised in Paris in 1622; his father supplied furnishings to the royal household.
Q 25The Misanthrope's subtitle calls Alceste an 'atrabilaire', a man ruled by which of the four humours?
Black bile
Black bile was the humour doctors linked to sadness and gloom; the full subtitle is usually put into English as the Cantankerous Lover.
Q 26Which Greek playwright wrote Dyskolos, an ancient comedy sometimes translated as The Misanthrope?
Menander
Menander won first prize with it in Athens, but the text was lost for centuries until a papyrus copy turned up in Egypt in the 1950s.
Q 27Which Shakespeare hero, a ruined Athenian who retreats to a cave, did Lucian call 'the Misanthrope'?
Timon
Timon curses the walls of Athens and lives on roots in the wilderness, a tragic cousin of Molière's comic Alceste.
Q 28William Wycherley based which 1676 comedy about a distrustful sea captain on The Misanthrope?
The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer was later reworked by Voltaire as La Prude, sending Molière's plot back across the Channel.
Q 29Which twice Pulitzer-winning American poet translated The Misanthrope into English verse in 1955?
Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur's version was still earning honours decades on: a special Drama Desk Award followed its 1983 Broadway revival.
Q 30Which English poet, author of the poem V, adapted The Misanthrope for the National Theatre in 1973?
Tony Harrison
Tony Harrison went on to make verse versions of the Oresteia and the medieval Mysteries for the same company.