Theatres, performances, travelling troupes, the various genres in vogue, the actors and dramatic styles from Richelieu to the theatre of Luigi XIV, to the first steps of the Comédie Française. A book about the masterpieces of this golden period of French theatre, host to a succession of works by Corneille, Molière Racine and their contemporaries - investigated from a perspective that combines philological focus on the text with the same attention to stage management, dramaturgic analysis and political history.