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Paul Stapfer
1840–1917
A French man of letters with a gift for making classic writers feel alive, he wrote lively studies of Rabelais, Montaigne, and Molière as well as a well-known book on Shakespeare. His work reflects a lifelong interest in literature, criticism, and teaching.
1 Audiobook
Molière et Shakespeare
by Paul Stapfer
About the author
Born in Paris on May 14, 1840, Paul Stapfer became a French writer, critic, and professor whose books helped introduce major European authors to a wide readership. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure and went on to teach literature, building a career that joined scholarship with an accessible, readable style.
Stapfer is especially remembered for literary studies such as Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity and books on Rabelais, Montaigne, and Molière. Rather than writing for specialists alone, he aimed to make great writers engaging and understandable, which gives his work a welcoming tone even now.
He died on January 7, 1917. Though not a household name today, he belonged to a generation of French critics who helped shape how classic literature was read and taught in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.