Corneille, Pierre 1606-84
French dramatist

Born in Rouen, he was educated in a Jesuit school and studied law. He moved to Paris in 1629, where his comedy M�lite (1629, Eng trans Melite, 1776) proved highly successful. His other early pieces handle intricate and extravagant plots with ingenuity, but show little of his poetic genius. He became one of Cardinal Richelieu's 'cinq auteurs' (five authors), engaged to compose plays on lines laid down by the cardinal, and produced such plays as L'Aveugle de Smyrne (1638, 'The Blind Man of Smyrna') and La Grande pastorale (1639, 'The Great Pastoral'), but he was too independent to retain Richelieu's favour. M�d�e (1635, 'Medea') showed a marked advance on his earlier works, and Le Cid (first produced in January 1637) took Paris by storm, and had a profound impact on French drama. Richelieu ordered his literary retainers to criticize it, but the general enthusiasm remained strong. Other major tragedies were Horace (1640, Eng trans Horatius, 1656), Cinna (1640, Eng trans Cinna's Conspiracy, 1713) and Polyeucte (1642, Eng trans Polyeuctes, 1655). Le Menteur (1643, Eng trans The Mistaken Beau; or, The Liar, 1685) entitles him to be called the father of French comedy as well as of French tragedy. From 1647, when he was made an academician, his plays show a decline in dramatic and poetic power. He made a verse translation of Thomas � Kempis's Imitatio Christi (1651). He returned to the stage in 1659 with ?dipe, and in 1671 joined Moli�re and Quinault in writing the opera Psych�. His last works were Pulch�rie (1672) and Sur�na (1674, Eng trans Surenas, 1969). After his marriage in 1640 he lived in Rouen until 1662, when he settled in Paris. A master of the Alexandrine verse form, his plays deal with heroes; but he concerned himself with moral and mental conflict rather than physical action, exploring the tensions between duty and honour on one hand, and passion on the other, and exalting man's capacity for freedom, strength of will, and spiritual development.

Bibliography: P J Yarrow, Corneille (1963)