Sharon D Clarke and Lucian Msamati in A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes at the Tricycle theatre, London, in 2015. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Stendhal's unsuccessful love affair with Méthilde Dembowski inspired him to write the autobiographical treatise De l'Amour (1822). Méthilde served as a model for various of Stendhal's subsequent heroines. The treatise analyzes the mechanism of love as Stendhal had observed it operating in himself. The second part of the work is a pseudo-sociological study purporting to show how rational temperament influences and modifies the love mechanism. Stendhal was forced to leave Milan in 1821 because of his liberal political beliefs. As in Stendhal's later work La Chartreuse de Parme, the protagonist, Julien Sorel, believes himself to be a driven and intelligent man, but is in reality a simpleton, a romantic, and a piece in a chess game played by others. Stendhal uses his addled hero to satirize French society of the time, particularly the hypocrisy and materialism of its aristocracy and of the Catholic Church, and to foretell a radical change in French society that will remove both of those forces from their positions of power. Wilson, Edmund (July 15, 1965). "The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov". nybooks.com. The New York Review of Books . Retrieved July 24, 2015.

Cementerio del Père-Lachaise, Cementerio de San José de París, Museo de los Monumentos Franceses y Molière's tomb

Rass, Rebecca (2020). Study Guide to The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Nashville: Influence Publishers. ISBN 978-1-64542-393-5. In 1799, the teenage Stendhal got his wish, traveling to Paris, ostensibly to pursue an academic career in mathematics. His diaries show, however, that he had been nursing a secret plan to become a playwright. He dreamed of become a "modern Jean-Baptiste Moliere," but his plans were soon interrupted by some wealthy relatives, who had him appointed second lieutenant in the French army stationed in Italy. In Italy, Stendhal discovered Lombardy, Milan, and the culture of the Italian people with whom he fell in love. His Italian experiences would dramatically shape the rest of his career.

Martin, Brian Joseph (2011). Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-century France. UPNE. ISBN 978-1-58465-944-0. Fue Dom Juan, tras Tartufo, la comedia más censurada y perseguida de Molière. La obra no se repuso hasta 1677, y solamente en una versión expurgada y versificada por Thomas Corneille. En cuanto a su edición, hizo falta esperar al año 1683 para que un librero de Ámsterdam publicara el texto íntegro. En vez de "Dios" se ponía la palabra "Cielo" y en vez de "Iglesia", "templo". Sin embargo, la compañía recibe por fin el apoyo del rey, quien concede una pensión de 7000 libras a sus cómicos y la autoriza a llamarse "Compañía Real". El 14 de diciembre de 1665 estrena una farsa tradicional, El amor médico, pero Molière cae gravemente enfermo. [12 ]​ Temporarily abandoning fiction, Stendhal turned again to biography, Vie de Napoléon (1839), to tragic adventure stories, Chroniques italiennes (1837-39), and to another travelogue, Mémoires d'un touriste (1839). The latter is a satire of customs and mores of provincial French life. Henri Beyle (Stendhal) was born in 1783, in Grenoble, into a respectable, middle-class family. Chérubin Beyle, Stendhal's father, a reactionary in politics, was an industrious, narrow-minded bourgeois, whom Henri detested and to whom he later referred as the "bâtard." Stendhal loved his mother tenderly, but this delightful woman, whose origin Stendhal liked to think was Italian, died when he was only seven. Later, he idealized her memory just as he exaggerated the mediocrity of his father. Of a fiery and rebellious nature, Stendhal declared himself early to be an atheist and "jacobin," or liberal — an expression of revolt, no doubt, against his father. Ese mismo año Molière concluyó su Tartufo / Tartuffe, donde denunciaba la hipocresía religiosa; Tartufo aparecía vestido de cura y con cilicio. El escándalo que se levantó entre los beatos fue de tal calibre que el rey prohibió durante cinco años la obra. A pesar de ello, Molière llevó a cabo algunas representaciones privadas y reescribió la obra dos veces al menos para sortear los reparos; esta pieza cuenta, pues, con un abundante subtexto.

His other works include short stories, journalism, travel books ( A Roman Journal), a famous collection of essays on Italian painting, and biographies of several prominent figures of his time, including Napoleon, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini and Metastasio. It was in his novels above all, and in his autobiographical writings (the interchange between these two literary activities remains a constant feature in his case), that Stendhal’s thoughts are expressed most fully. But even these texts remain baffling. Their prosaic and ironic style at first glance hides the intensity of Stendhal’s vision and the profundity of his views. Vladimir Nabokov was dismissive of Stendhal, in Strong Opinions calling him "that pet of all those who like their French plain". In the notes to his translation of Eugene Onegin, he asserts that Le Rouge et le Noir is "much overrated", and that Stendhal has a "paltry style". In Pnin Nabokov wrote satirically, "Literary departments still labored under the impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy, Dreiser, and Mann were great writers." [42]