Jean Francois Regnard

Jean François Regnard , 1655-1709, French comic dramatist. He traveled widely in Europe; captured by Barbary pirates, he was held in slavery (1678-79) until ransomed. His best-known comedies, characterized by verve and mocking gaiety, are Le Joueur [the gamester] (1696), a comedy of character; Les Folies amoureuses [lovers' madnesses] (1704); Les Ménechmes (1705), after Plautus; and Le Légataire universel (1708; tr. The Sole Heir, 1912).

Regnard, Jean-François (1655–1709), French dramatist, who wrote for the Comédie-Italienne from 1688 to 1696, often in collaboration, and from 1694 to 1708 for the Comédie-Française also, ranking second to Molière as a writer of comedy. His first successful production there was Attendez-moi sous l'orme (1694); of those that followed the best were Le Joueur (1696) and Le Légataire universel (1708), the latter remaining in the repertory of the Comédie-Française until the early 20th century. Though Regnard inevitably suffers by comparison with his illustrious predecessor, he had a considerable talent for comic situations and witty dialogue, and it is interesting to trace in his plays the gradual emergence as the central figure of the valet, forerunner of Beaumarchais's Figaro.