Pierre Corneille

The French dramatist Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) wrote more than 30 plays and is often called the father of French tragedy. His tragedies characteristically explore the conflict between heroic love and heroic devotion to duty.

Pierre Corneille was born on June 6, 1606, in Rouen. Educated in the Jesuit school of the city, he completed law studies and became a lawyer there in 1624. In 1628 his father purchased for him, according to the custom of the times, the post of king's advocate in Rouen. Corneille continued for many years to discharge his legal duties as king's advocate, but his real interest was literature. At some time between 1625 and 1629 he wrote the comedy Mélite, which was taken up by a traveling theatrical troupe and subsequently presented in Paris, where it was an immense success.

French Classical Drama

In 1629 the French theater was moving away from the exuberant baroque style of the early 17th century toward a dramaturgy based on the theatrical precepts of Aristotle and his commentators since the Renaissance. The general rules included the famous principle of "three unities" (time, place, and action), according to which a play must present a single coherent story, taking place within one day in a single palace or at most a single city. They also included the principles of theatrical verisimilitude (the events presented must be believable) and of bienséance (standards of "good taste" must be followed to avoid shocking the audience). These three major precepts structured the great classical theater of the following decades in France.

Corneille apparently first encountered the theatrical mainstream while attending performances of Mélite in Paris, and he recalled in later years that his first play was "certainly not written according to the rules, since I didn't know then that there were any." Although Corneille observed the rules more conscientiously in his subsequent plays, he was never completely bound by them. His ambivalent attitude toward the Aristotelian precepts is evident in his highly baroque plays - the extravagant tragicomedy Clitandre (1630/1631), the violent tragedy Médée (1635), and the fascinating comedy L'Illusion comique (1636) - and remains apparent in his first masterpiece, Le Cid (1637).

Major Tragedies

Corneille's Le Cidis based on traditional stories about the Cid, a medieval warrior and Spanish national hero. In it the young Cid (Don Rodrigue) must avenge his father's honor by fighting a duel with the father of his own fiancée (Dona Chimène). Rodrigue thus finds himself torn between a duty to avenge family honor and a duty to act consistently with the precepts of love. To neglect either would tarnish his gloire. The concept of gloire, which combines elements of noblesse oblige, virtue, force of will, and self-esteem, seems to have formed the highest ideal of Corneille's world view. In the course of the play Rodrigue fights Chimène's father and kills him, thus forcing Chimène to choose between family honor and her love for Rodrigue. Rodrigue distinguishes himself by defending the city against a Moorish attack, and Chimène distinguishes herself by implacably pursuing vengeance against Rodrigue. In the end the King judges that both have acted according to the most heroic conception of gloire; he declares that Chimène has fulfilled her obligation to her father and commands her to marry Rodrigue within a year.

Le Cid was one of the greatest theatrical successes of the 17th century. And although its success was marred by a literary quarrel in which lesser authors attacked its sins against the literary rules, it marked Corneille as a major dramatist and opened the most important epoch of his career. During this period Corneille showed great pride in his literary accomplishments but continued to practice law in Rouen and remained very much a bourgeois provincial who had made good. He was both resentful of, and deferential to, the literary "authorities" who attacked his play. When the newly founded French Academy decided against him, he was genuinely discouraged and apparently abandoned the theater for some time. An academician who remained friendly with Corneille wrote: "I encouraged him as much as I could and told him to avenge himself by writing some new Cid. But he talked of nothing but the rules and the things he could have replied to the academicians."

Overcoming his discouragement, Corneille wrote the successful tragedy Horace (1640), which was soon followed by Cinna (1640) and Polyeucte (1642). In these tragedies he continued to explore the concepts of gloire, heroism, and moral conflict.

Horace, based on an incident from early Roman history, depicts a young man who with his brothers, the Horatii, is obliged to defend Rome in combat against three brothers (the Curatii) from an enemy town. Horace's wife, however, is a sister of the Curatii, and his own sister is engaged to one of them. In Cinna a conspirator hesitates between his fidelity to the state and the desire for vengeance of the woman he loves; and the Roman emperor Auguste, who discovers the conspiracy, must choose between vengeance or clemency for the conspirators. In Polyeucte the hero is converted to Christianity during the Roman persecution of the Christians. He openly attacks the pagan religion, and thus he, his wife, his father-in-law (the Roman governor), and a noble Roman envoy must reconcile personal feelings and religious or political duty.

Later Career

In 1644 Corneille returned successfully to comedy with Le Menteur and to tragedy with Pompée, but thereafter his success as a playwright was less consistent. Although such tragedies as Nicomède (1651), Oedipe (1659), and Sertorius (1662) were favorably received, Corneille wrote a larger number of unsuccessful plays. He tried one formula after another to make a comeback, and courtiers, great ladies, and men of letters took sides for or against him. But the success of each new play became more and more uncertain, and Corneille himself more and more embittered. His last play, Suréna (1674), skillfully imitated the style of the playwright who had eclipsed him, Jean Racine, but was less successful than Racine's play of the same year. Although Corneille remained active in the literary world, he wrote nothing more for the theater. He died on Oct. 1, 1684, in Paris.

Critical Judgment

In his tragedies Corneille's treatment of his heroes' moral dilemmas is ambiguous and has inspired divergent views of his meaning. Although his heroes typically possess almost superhuman virtue and courage, each tragedy is resolved by the intervention of superior authority. Some critics have therefore asserted that Corneille's tragic works do not inspire terror or pity, the reactions that Aristotle stated were proper to tragedy. In the 17th century, however, the critics and poet Nicholas Boileau pointed out that in differing from the Aristotelian model Corneille had written "tragedies of admiration."

Such romantics as Victor Hugo, while unfavorable to classical theater in general, admired the heroic and optimistic virtue of Cornelian personages, a characteristic that has also been noted by more recent critics. Others, however, have spoken deprecatingly of the curious innocence or naiveté of even the most admirable of Corneille's heroes and have depicted Rodrigue, Horace, Polyeucte, and the rest as prisoners of a rigid virtue and exaggerated gloire. These criticisms possess some validity but also indicate the subtlety of Corneille's tragic vision.

Further Reading

Some of Corneille's plays were translated into English verse by Lacy Lockert, ed., Chief Plays (2d ed., 1957). The best recent work on Corneille in English is Robert J. Nelson, Corneille: His Heroes and Their Worlds (1963). Nelson also reprinted selected Cornelian criticism in his excellent Corneille and Racine: Parallels and Contrasts (1966). Herbert Fogel surveyed critical opinion, The Criticism of Cornelian Tragedy (1967). The best work in English on the baroque esthetic in French literature is Imbrie Buffum, Studies in the Baroque from Montaigne to Rotrou (1957), which has chapters on some of Corneille's early plays. E. B. O. Borgerhoff, The Freedom of French Classicism (1950), and Will Grayburn Moore, French Classical Literature (1961), study the richness of 17th-century literary styles, including Corneille's.

Additional Sources

Corneille, Pierre, Polyeuctus; The liar; Nicomedes, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York: Penguin Books, 1980.

Couprie, Alain, Pierre Corneille, Le Cid, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1989.

(click to enlarge)
Pierre Corneille, detail of an oil painting attributed to Charles Le Brun, 1647; in the … (credit: Cliché Musées Nationaux, Paris)

(born June 6, 1606, Rouen, France — died Oct. 1, 1684, Paris) French poet and playwright. He studied law and was a king's counselor in Rouen (1628 – 50). He wrote his first comedy, Mélite (performed 1629), before he was 20; other comedies followed. He responded to the call for a new approach to classical tragedy by writing Médée (1635) and then Le Cid (1637), an instant success that established him as the creator of French classical tragedy; the play has come to be regarded as the most significant in the history of French drama. His next tragedies, Horace (1641), Cinna (1643), and Polyeucte (1643), have joined Le Cid as Corneille's "classical tetralogy." He returned to comedy with The Liar (1644), which occupies a central place in French classical comedy. From 1660 he wrote one play a year, ending with the tragedy Suréna (1674).

For more information on Pierre Corneille, visit Britannica.com.

Corneille, Pierre (1606-84). One of France's greatest dramatists, author of 32 plays. His reputation has waxed and waned, often in relation to his rival Racine; in recent decades Racine has been the more performed and appreciated, even though Jean Vilar, for instance, regarded Corneille as the more genuinely popular playwright. Only a small part of his work is now familiar to the broad public, and generalizations about ‘Cornelian tragedy’ or ‘the Cornelian hero’ are often based on a handful of plays.

He was born into a middle-class family in Rouen, where he lived for most of his life. His father was a magistrate who acquired noble status, which Corneille inherited. He married a local woman and was the father of seven children. His studies at the local Jesuit college left him with an excellent knowledge of Latin and a lasting attachment to the eloquence and humanist values of his masters. He worked for many years as a lawyer and administrator in Rouen, but lost his post as an indirect result of the Fronde. A loyal subject, he had troubled relations with Richelieu and Mazarin; Richelieu at first ‘protected’ him, but Corneille was an independent spirit, and the minister encouraged his newly founded Académie Française to censure Le Cid. The playwright became a member of the Academy only in 1647. Generally he was adept at securing patronage; in 1658 he acquired the favour of Fouquet, and in the 1660s he received a royal pension and wrote court poetry.

He was a master of verse, and throughout his career wrote in various genres, from love poetry and salon pieces to works of devotion. Between 1651 and 1656 he made a complete verse translation of the Imitation of Christ (first published in 1656); subsequent religious translations included L'Office de la Vierge (1669). But it was the theatre which made him. Or rather, like one of his heroes, he created his own identity by bringing a new glory to the French stage.

The date of his early plays—and indeed of many later ones—is uncertain. They were performed in Paris by the young company of Mondory, later known as the Théatre du Marais—to which he remained attached, though for his later plays he preferred the Hôtel de Bourgogne [see Theatres And Audiences]. With the exception of the swashbuckling tragicomedy Clitandre (1630), they are all comedies: Mélite (1629/30), La Veuve (1631?), La Galerie du Palais (1632?), La Suivante (1632/3), and La Place Royale (1633/4). Eschewing the easy laughs and stock types of farce, Corneille models himself rather on the pastoral. His comedies take place, however, in a stylized modern urban setting. They are concerned with love and marriage (the realities of money not being forgotten), and the action usually revolves around two young couples. In this world of deception and matrimonial negotiation, feelings are uncertain, and identity is created by the playing of parts. In this respect, the comedies prefigure the later tragedies, the most interesting character being the heroically ridiculous Alidor of La Place Royale.

Corneille's first tragedy was his reworking of a grim classical subject, Médée (1635). This was immediately followed by the play-within-a-play, L'Illusion comique (1635), which is like a self-reflexive prelude to the four great tragedies, Le Cid (1637), Horace (1640), Cinna (1640/1), and Polyeucte (1641/2). These plays established Corneille as the outstanding tragedian of the day, and they have been the four pillars of his fame ever since. All of them, while evoking distant times and places, had a topical political relevance which did not escape contemporaries.

There followed two further comedies, Le Menteur (1644) and La Suite du Menteur (1644), and four Roman tragedies, La Mort de Pompée (1644), Rodogune (1645), Théodore (1646), and Héraclius (1647). The last three of these show an increasing preference for a bewildering complexity of plot and for shocking subjects taken from little-known corners of ancient history. Théodore, with its story involving martyrdom and prostitution, was Corneille's first theatrical failure.

In 1648, on Mazarin's request, he wrote the text (in ‘vers libres’) for the machine play Andromède; it was performed, with grandiose sets by Torelli, in 1650. The next three plays, Nicomède (1651), Pertharite (1651), and Don Sanche d'Aragon (1650), all reflect the current political situation, in particular the troubles of the Fronde. Don Sanche was given the new label of ‘comédie héroique’ to denote a serious play that ends well.

After the failure of Pertharite, Corneille retired from the theatre for several years, only returning in 1659 with Œdipe, written at the request of Fouquet. The following year he published a complete edition of his plays (1660), for which he revised the earlier plays extensively, writing a critical ‘examen’ for each of them, as well as three important theoretical pieces, the Discours du poème dramatique, the Discours de la tragédie, and the Discours des trois unités.

In 1662 he moved to Paris with his brother Thomas , and continued to write for the theatre until 1674. His production includes a collaboration with Molière on the court spectacular Psyché (he had earlier written the text for a similarly grandiose piece, La Toison d'or, produced in 1661). But the bulk of his work is made up of tragedies or ‘comédies héroiques’: Sertorius (1662), Sophonisbe (1663), Othon (1664), Agésilas (1666), Attila (1667), Tite et Bérénice (1670), Pulchérie (1672), and Suréna (1674). These years were embittered by a growing feeling of neglect and failure, and by the success of his aggressive young rival, Racine. His later plays do not have the surging confidence and eloquence of his greatest period, but they make up a fascinating and varied body of work, and do not deserve the neglect which they have suffered.

In his attitude to the theatre, Corneille was proudly independent. He did not accept the authority of Aristotle and his interpreters on all points. For instance, improbable but true subjects might override the dictates of vraisemblance [see Tragedy], and the emotion aroused by tragedy could be admiration as well as pity or terror. His prefaces and ‘examens’ show his desire to dazzle the audience. His plays are full of exceptional characters (from the saintly Polyeucte to the monstrous Cléopâtre in Rodogune), terrible dilemmas, and surprising turns of events—the complexity of plays such as Othon or Héraclius is enough to baffle the inattentive spectator. Above all, his plays are remarkable for their eloquence. His heroes and heroines are living examples of the humanist ideal of the orator, as it was inculcated in the Jesuit colleges.

The Jesuits may also have instilled in him an optimistic faith in human nature. In his theatre exceptional individuals, members of a heroic élite, create their own identities, based on an ethic of gloire (reputation) and générosité (magnanimity) which is not generally felt to be at odds either with the national interest or with Christian values. Love plays a crucial part in this ideal; although it is often opposed to the demands of honour or duty, it remains an essential part of the heroic life, and the creation of the couple is a central element in Corneille's tragedies and comedies alike.

This optimism does not go unchallenged, however. L'Illusion comique shows in a comic light his awareness of the theatrical fraud. The spectator is always conscious of the pain associated with heroism, and of the vulnerability of the ideal. In the later plays in particular, love and heroism are often seen as at odds with selfish calculation and with the Machiavellian politics known as ‘raison d'état’; his swan-song, Suréna, is exemplary in this respect.

Moral and political issues are debated with passionate seriousness in Corneille's tragedies; he was clearly fascinated by such questions and their topical applications, and he often seems to give his approval to particular positions. In recent years critics have shown (often in contradictory ways) how his plays appear to echo contemporary ethical discourse. But it would be wrong to see him as essentially an ideologist. He was a first and foremost a playwright.

[Peter France]

Bibliography

• P. Bénichou, Morales du grand siècle (1948)
• B. Dort, Corneille dramaturge (1957)
• G. Pocock, Corneille and Racine: Problems of Tragic Form (1973)
• M. Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs: rhétorique et dramaturgie cornéliennes (1990)

Corneille, Pierre (1606–1684), French dramatist and theoretician. Often considered the first major modern French playwright, Corneille was born and raised in Rouen, in Normandy, where his father was a lawyer. Little is known about his early life, except that he was a good student who studied law, but supposedly practiced only briefly. In 1625 his brother Thomas, who became a popular and respected (although now mostly forgotten) playwright, was born. Pierre's first play, Mélite, a comedy of manners, was staged in Paris in either 1629 or 1630, and during the next few years he wrote a number of comedies, including the fanciful L'illusion comique (1635–1636), and enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu. In 1637 his most famous play, the tragicomedy Le Cid, was performed; it was immensely popular with audiences and yet drew critical controversy.

The proponents of the newly emerging classical aesthetic in the 1630s criticized many of the "irregularities" in the popular play and strove to reduce its influence and prevent it from serving as a precedent for imitators. During the "Quarrel of Le Cid," critics found that the duels and the battle with the Moors stretched the credibility of the unity of time (one day), the various scenes set around the city stretched the unity of place (one locale), and the presence of the king's daughter (L'Infante) who loved Rodrigue was considered a subplot, thus destroying the unity of action (one plot line). The play mixes the genres of tragedy (death) and comedy (marriage) in a tragi-comedy, a popular form that classicism rejected. Also, the play was set in medieval Spain, that is, in a Christian context, whereas the rules of classicism held that tragic actions should be set in pagan times, ideally in ancient Greece or Rome.

In Corneille's play the young Rodrigue and Chimène love each other but are torn apart by their duty to family. In order to avenge the honor of his frail father, Rodrigue fights a duel (to the death) with the offender, who is Chimène's father. Rodrigue kills him and discovers that Chimène, despite her continued love, which she keeps secret, seeks either justice from the king or revenge from other suitors. The Moors attack, and Rodrigue, showing great skill in battle, saves the country and is recognized by the enemy as the leader, "le Cid." The king is satisfied that Rodrigue has risked his life and served his people, but Chimène still publicly seeks revenge. For her to acquiesce would be to lose honor. The king finally allows one decisive duel between Dom Sanche and Rodrigue; Rodrigue is again victorious, but he spares the life of his opponent. The play ends with plans for a marriage between Chimène and Rodrigue one year later, after she can grieve her father's death and Le Cid can further serve his country.

Corneille's next play, the more technically unified tragedy Horace, was performed in 1640, followed by Cinna (1641) and a Christian tragedy Polyeucte (1642–1643); these four plays formed the traditional group of his masterpieces that were esteemed in theaters and classrooms for three centuries. In 1641 Corneille married Marie de Lampérière, and the couple had six children. After several failed attempts, he was elected to the French Academy in 1647. Throughout the 1640s he was a fairly prolific playwright (Le Menteur, 1643; Rodogune, 1645; and several less successful works). In 1651, however, after the failure of his tragedy Pertharite, he renounced the theater for eight years. In 1660 he published an edition of his complete plays, which included three "Discourses on Dramatic Poetry" in which he explained contemporary stage theory. The plays he wrote in the 1660s and 1670s had varying success, but they did not equal his earlier triumphs. His last work was a tragedy, Suréna, in 1674. He spent the final years of his life working on another edition of his theatrical works, and on a translation of the De Imitatione Christi by Thomas à Kempis (1379 or 1380–1471).

Le Cid shows many distinguishing elements found in Corneille's other great works (Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte). The characters are torn by an internal division between duty (to family, country, or religion) and love. Because they choose reason and honor rather than succumbing to passion, the characters are praiseworthy, yet they are somewhat remote and inhuman in their renunciations. The poetry is noble and memorable, often quoted by critics and writers who nonetheless praised the dramatic techniques of the younger Jean Racine (1639–1699), who adhered more strictly to the tenets of classicism and whose characters were all too human, renouncing reason for their passions. It was Corneille, however, who gave French theater heroes whom the public could admire rather than pity.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Corneille, Pierre. The Chief Plays of Corneille. Translated by Lacy Lockett. Princeton, 1957.

——. Œuvres complètes. Edited by Georges Couton. 3 vols. Paris, 1980–1987.

Secondary Sources

Carlin, Claire L. Pierre Corneille Revisited. New York, 1998.

Clarke, David. Pierre Corneille: Poetics and Political Drama under Louis XIII. Cambridge, U.K., 1992.

Greenberg, Mitchell. Corneille, Classicism and the Ruses of Symmetry. Cambridge, U.K., 1986.

Hubert, Judd D. Corneille's Performative Metaphors. Charlottesville, Va., 1997.

Lyons, John D. The Tragedy of Origins: Pierre Corneille and Historical Perspective. Stanford, 1996.

Mallinson, Jonathan J. The Comedies of Corneille. Manchester, U.K., 1984.

Nelson, Robert J. Corneille: His Heroes and Their Worlds. Philadelphia, 1963.

Schmidt, Josephine A. If There Are No More Heroes There Are Heroines: A Feminist Critique of Corneille's Heroines, 1637–1643. Lanham, Md., 1987.

—ALLEN G. WOOD

Quotes:

"Do your duty and leave the rest to heaven."

"All evils are equal when they are extreme."

"Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not."

"Those who easily forgive invite offenses."

"The manner of giving is worth more than the gift."

"One often calms one's grief by recounting it."

See more famous quotes by Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Born	June 6, 1606 Rouen
Died	October 1, 1684 Paris
Occupation	tragedian
Nationality	France
Genres	tragedian
Notable work(s)	Le Cid
Spouse(s)	Marie de Lampérière
Relative(s)	Marte le pesant Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille (June 6, 1606 – October 1, 1684) was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. He has been called “the founder of French tragedy” and produced plays for nearly forty years.

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Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and plays 1.2 Les Cinq Auteurs 1.3 Querelle du Cid 1.4 Response to the Querelle du Cid 1.5 Later plays 2 Works 3 Quotes 3.1 From Corneille's plays 3.2 About Corneille 4 E-text 5 Further reading 5.1 External links 5.2 Books 6 See also

Biography

Early life and plays

Corneille was born at Rouen, France, to Marte le pesant and Pierre Corneille (a minor administrative official). He was given a rigorous Jesuit education and at 18 began to study law. His practical legal endeavors were largely unsuccessful. Corneille’s father secured two magisterial posts for him with the Rouen department of Forests and Rivers. During his time with the department he wrote his first play. It is unknown exactly when he wrote it, but the play, the comedy Mélite, surfaced when Corneille brought it to a group of traveling actors in 1629. The actors approved of the work and made it part of their repertoire. The play was a success in Paris and Corneille began writing plays on a regular basis. He moved to Paris in the same year and soon became one of the leading playwrights of the French stage. His early comedies, starting with Mélite, depart from the French farce tradition by reflecting the elevated language and manners of fashionable Parisian society. Corneille describes his variety of comedy as "une peinture de la conversation des honnêtes gens" ("a painting of the conversation of the gentry"). His first true tragedy is Médée, produced in 1635.

Les Cinq Auteurs

The year 1634 brought more attention to Corneille. He was selected to write verses for the Cardinal Richelieu’s visit to Rouen. The Cardinal took notice of Corneille and selected him to be among Les Cinq Auteurs (“The Five Poets”; also translated as “the society of the five authors”). Also included in this collective were Guillaume Colletet, Boisrobert, Jean Rotrou, and Claude de Lestoile.

The five were selected to realize Richelieu's vision of a new kind of drama that emphasized virtue. Richelieu would present ideas, which the writers would express in dramatic form. However, the Cardinal's demands were too restrictive for Corneille, who attempted to innovate outside the boundaries defined by Richelieu. This led to contention between playwright and employer. After his initial contract ended, Corneille left Les Cinq Auteurs and returned to Rouen.

Querelle du Cid

In the years directly following this break with Richelieu, Corneille produced what is considered his finest play. Le Cid (al sayyid in Arabic; roughly translated as 'The Lord'), is based on the play Mocedades del Cid (1621) by Guillem de Castro. Both plays were based on the legend of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (nicknamed El Cid Campeador), a military figure in Medieval Spain.

The original 1637 edition of the play was subtitled a tragicomedy, acknowledging that it intentionally defies the classical tragedy/comedy distinction. Even though Le Cid was an enormous popular success, it was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic practice, known as the Querelle du Cid or The Quarrel of Le Cid. Cardinal Richelieu's Académie Française acknowledged the play's success, but determined that it was defective, in part because it did not respect the classical unities of time, place, and action (Unity of Time stipulated that all the action in a play must take place within a twenty-four hour time-frame; Unity of Place, that there must be only one setting for the action; and Unity of Action, that the plot must be centred around a single conflict or problem). The newly-formed Académie was a body that asserted state control over cultural activity. Although it usually dealt with efforts to standardize the French language, Richelieu himself ordered an analysis of Le Cid.

Accusations of immorality were leveled at the play in the form of a famous pamphlet campaign. These attacks were founded on the classical theory that the theatre was a site of moral instruction. The Académie's recommendations concerning the play are articulated in Jean Chapelain's Sentiments de l'Académie française sur la tragi-comédie du Cid (1638). Even the prominent writer Georges de Scudéry harshly criticized the play in his Observations sur le Cid (1637).

The controversy grew too much for Corneille, who decided to return to Rouen. When one of his plays was reviewed unfavorably, Corneille was known to withdraw from public life.

Response to the Querelle du Cid

After a hiatus from the theater, Corneille returned in 1640. The Querelle du Cid caused Corneille to pay closer attention to classical dramatic rules. This was evident in his next plays, which were classical tragedies: Horace (1640, dedicated to Richelieu), Cinna (1643), and Polyeucte (1643). These three plays and Le Cid are collectively known as Corneille's 'Classical Tetralogy'. Corneille also responded to the criticisms of the Académie by making multiple revisions to Le Cid to make it closer to the conventions of classical tragedy. The 1648, 1660, and 1682 editions were no longer subtitled ‘tragicomedy’, but ‘tragedy’.

Adrienne Lecouvreur, as Cornelia in "The Death of Pompey"

Corneille’s popularity grew and by the mid 1640’s, the first collection of his plays was published. Corneille married Marie de Lampérière in 1641. They had seven children together. In the mid to late 1640’s, Corneille produced mostly tragedies: La Mort de Pompée (The Death of Pompey, performed 1644), Rodogune (performed 1645), Theodore (performed 1646), and Héraclius (performed 1647). He also wrote one comedy in this period: Le Menteur (The Liar, 1644).

In 1652, the play Pertharite met with poor critical reviews and a disheartened Corneille decided to quit the theatre. He began to focus on an influential verse translation of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, which he completed in 1656. After an absence of nearly eight years, Corneille was persuaded to return to the stage in 1659. He wrote the play Oedipe, which was favored by Louis XIV. In the next year, Corneille published Trois discours sur le poème dramatique (Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry), which were, in part, defenses of his style. These writings can be seen as Corneille’s response to the Querelle du Cid. He simultaneously maintained the importance of classical dramatic rules and justified his own transgressions of those rules in Le Cid. Corneille argued the Aristotelian dramatic guidelines were not meant to be subject to a strict literal reading. Instead, he suggested that they were open to interpretation. Although the relevance of classical rules was maintained, Corneille suggested that the rules should not be so tyrannical that they stifle innovation.

Later plays

Even though Corneille was prolific after his return to the stage, writing one play a year for the 14 years after 1659, his plays did not have the same success as those of his earlier career. Other writers were beginning to gain popularity. In 1670 Corneille and Jean Racine, one of his dramatic rivals, were challenged to write plays on the same incident. Each playwright was unaware that the challenge had also been issued to the other. When both plays were completed, it was generally acknowledged that Corneille’s Tite et Bérénice (1671) was inferior to Racine’s play (Bérénice). Molière was also prominent at the time and Corneille even composed the comedy Psyché (1671) in collaboration with him (and Philippe Quinault). Most of the plays that Corneille wrote after his return to the stage were tragedies. They included La Toison d'or (The Golden Fleece, 1660), Sertorius (1662), Othon (1664), Agésilas (1666), and Attila (1667).

Corneille’s final play was the tragedy Suréna (1674). After this, he retired from the stage for the final time and died at his home in Paris in 1684. His grave in the Église Saint-Roch went without a monument until 1821.

Works

• Mélite (1629)
• Clitandre (1630–31)
• la Veuve (1631)
• la Galerie du Palais (1631–32)
• La Place royale (1633–34)
• l'Illusion comique (1636)
• Médée (1635)
• le Cid (1637)
• Horace (1640)
• Cinna (1641)
• Polyeucte (1642)
• La Mort de Pompée (1643)
• Le Menteur (1643)
• Rodogune (1644)
• Héraclius (1647)
• Don Sanche d'Aragon (1650)
• Andromède, (1650)
• Nicomède, (1651)
• Pertharite, (1651)
• l'Imitation de Jésus-Christ (1656)
• Oedipe (1659)
• Trois Discours sur le poème dramatique (1660)
• La Toison d'or (1660)
• Sertorius (1662)
• Othon (1664)
• Agésilas (1666)
• Attila (1667)
• Tite et Bérénice (1670)
• Psyché (w/ Molière and Philippe Quinault,1671)
• Pulchérie (1672)
• Suréna (1674)

Quotes

From Corneille's plays

• "When we conquer without danger our triumph is without glory." – Le Cid
• "And the combat ceased, for want of combatants." - Le Cid
• "My sweetest hope is to lose all hope." - Le Cid
• "All evils are equal when they are extreme." - Horace
• "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends." – Cinna
• "By speaking of our misfortunes we often relieve them." - Polyeucte
• "In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate." - La Mort de Pompée

About Corneille

• “Le Cid marks the birth of a man, the rebirth of poetry, the dawn of a great century.” – Sainte-Beuve (transl.)

E-text

• Works by Pierre Corneille at Project Gutenberg
  • Le Cid at Project Gutenberg
  • Le Cid at Project Gutenberg
• (French) Cinna

Further reading

External links

• Monologues from Corneille's plays
• Biographical information
• Biography, Bibliography, Analysis, Plot overview (in French)
• Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ (modern translation)

Books

• Ekstein, Nina. Corneille's Irony. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2007.
• Guizot, M. Corneille and His Times. London: Kennikat Press, 1972.
• Harrison, Helen. Pistoles/Paroles: Money and Language in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1996.
• Hubert, J. D. Corneille's Performing Metaphors. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1997.
• Nelson, Robert J. Corneille: His Heroes and Their Worlds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963.
• Yarrow, P.J. Corneille. London: Macmillan & Co., 1963.

See also

• Cornelian dilemma, named after Corneille

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Pierre Corneille

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pierre Corneille

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pierre Corneille

Preceded by François Maynard

Seat 14 Académie française 1647–1684

Succeeded by Thomas Corneille

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