Corneille, Pierre

kor-nal', Pierre, (1606-1684), a noted French dramatist and poet. He was a native of Rouen. He was educated at the Jesuit College in that city, and was admitted to the bar in 1624. He held the posts of advocate to the admiralty and to "waters and forests," for which he received, however, little remuneration. His profession seems to have brought him no other employment. His first dramatic production was Melite, a comedy produced in 1629. Melite was very different from the plays then in vogue, but it nevertheless scored a success and became popular. It was followed by others which, though now regarded unreadable, were at that time better than anything known. Richelieu appointed Corneille as one of his "five poets," which meant that it became his duty to write tragedies whose plots were furnished by Richelieu. Corneille was of too independent a character for this work and soon incurred displeasure by making changes in the plots assigned him.

In 1636 appeared Le Cid, a tragi-comedy. This has been called the most "epoch-making" play in all literature. It was based on the old Spanish romances. Its immense success aroused the jealousy of Richelieu and the French Academy, and a famous controversy resulted. For years the history of the French stage was the history of Corneille's works. Les Horaces, following Le Cid in 1639, shows greater power of invention than any other of Corneille's plays. Cinna was produced in the same year and was considered by Voltaire his masterpiece. Others regard Polyeucte, produced in 1640, not only as Corneille's best, but as the masterpiece "of Christian tragedy and the French theatre." Other works followed rapidly, Le Menteur, the greatest of Corneille's comedies, being especially worthy of note. And now began a decline as "rapid as his success had been brilliant." It is difficult to account for his loss of popularity. He doubtless feared criticism too much to allow himself to be guided by his own genius. He had aroused envy and jealousy, and seems to have been angered at having to fight his way. From 1653 to 1659 Corneille devoted himself to poetry and produced no dramatic work. Persuaded to change his resolve, he began dramatic work again in 1659; but, although he produced several plays, they did not attain the celebrity of his earlier dramas. During the last ten years of his life Corneille wrote little. He suffered nearly all his life from poverty--at that time a playwright was but poorly paid--and toward the last he was well nigh destitute. Boileau, who had ever befriended Corneille, persuaded the king to send him assistance, but he died two days afterward.

There is a striking inequality in Corneille's writings. While he has produced work that places him in the front rank of French dramatists, he has written much which is dull and tedious, showing no sign of genius. Moliere said, "My friend Corneille has a familiar who inspires him with the finest verses in the world. But sometimes the familiar leaves him to shift for himself, and then he fares badly. Corneille enjoyed, however, immense popularity for a time, and always large appreciation. Boileau, when asked concerning the great men of Louis XIV's reign, replied, "I only know three, Corneille, Moliere, and myself." "And how about Racine?" he was asked. "Racine was an extremely clever fellow," he replied, "whom I taught with great difficulty to write verse."

Corneille was not personally prepossessing. Either from shyness, or pride, or both, he preserved a certain rusticity of manners and speech which tended to repel strangers. Racine is said to have remarked to his son that Corneille wrote verses a hundred times more beautiful than his own, but that he was the more popular of the two because he took some trouble to make himself personally agreeable. Sometimes Corneille's friends would take him to task for not cultivating the graces of society, when he would reply, "Jesuis toujours, Pierre Corneille,"--I am always Pierre Corneille.

QUOTATIONS.

Corneille was the first dramatist who made the sentiment of admiration the basis of tragedy instead of terror or pity.

Almost the first thing which strikes the reader is the singular inequality of this poet. Producing, as he certainly has produced, work which classes him with the greatest names in literature, he has also signed an extraordinary quantity of verse which has not merely the defects of genius, irregularity, extravagance, but the faults which we are apt to regard as exclusively belonging to those who lack genius, to wit, the dullness and tediousness of mediocrity. . . . But his rank among the greatest of dramatic poets is not a matter of question. For a poet is to be judged by his best things, and the best things of Corneille are second to none.--Britannica.

Corneille's chief merit lies in his dignity of style, and in a certain declamatory grandeur of sentiment, which his countrymen have been accustomed to consider truly epical, and which it is now impossible to convince them as nearly resembles rant as it does sublimity.--Chambers.