I was mostly talking difficulty in understanding what is being said.

Moliere is fine, you need a bit of a wider vocabulary registry than the average but anyone with a decent education should be able to understand everything. Going back further (say, Chretien de Troyes, to really make the case) - it could as well be written in a different language. I understand 1/3rd of the sentences - and I can hardly imagine and do patchwork on the rest to get to the meaning.

To read something like that is just a pain in the neck. The King James Bible sometimes goes a bit overboard with the "thee" and "thou" and all that stuff. Your own choice of a quote was a good example.

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I don't mind not entirely understanding a text; I think it adds to the mystique. I suspect that part of the reason I don't really respond to French poetry is that it doesn't really have the rhythm bit, or not to the same extent.

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Well I find Chaucer nearly unreadable in the original, but I'm more interested in the content of historical documents anyway.

I haven't tried but I guess Chaucer would be closer to Chretien de Troyes than to Moliere/Racine.

I really would like to take a stab at his stuff. I like the medieval period and his books are highly praised even by modern people...

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