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The Hero in Corneille's Early Comedies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Immediately after his tragedy Pompée (1642–43), Corneille wrote Le Menteur (1643), a comedy. In the “Epître” of the latter play, Corneille tried to explain this curious sequence in genre and offered as one of his reasons: “Et d'ailleurs, étant obligé au genre comique de ma première réputation, je ne pouvois l'abandonner tout à fait sans quelque espèce d'ingratitude.” This argument simply recalled to his contemporaries that five, and in a sense all six, of the earliest plays by the author of the tragic masterpieces from Le Cid (1637) to Polyeucte (1641–42) were in the comic vein. Influenced by the incomprehension or hostility of the “classical” period, later generations were little aware of this first flowering of Corneille's dramatic genius.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1963
References
1 Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur, in Œuvres de P. Corneille, ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux, Les Grands Ecrivains de la France, 12 vols. (Paris, 1862–68), iv, 130. Ail future references will be to this edition.
2 La Bruyère's well known dictum is typical of the attitude in the age of Louis XIV: “Ses premières comédies sont sèches, languissantes, et ne laissoient pas espérer qu'il dût ensuite aller si loin.” Les Caractères, in Œuvres de La Bruyère, ed. G. Servois, Les Grands Ecrivains de la France (Paris, 1865), i, 139–140. It is indicative too that in his Commentaires stir Corneille, Voltaire's “remarques” begin with Médée, Corneille's seventh play and first tragedy.
3 In Pierre Corneille, dramaturge (Les Grands Dramaturges, 16, Paris: L'Arche, 1957), Bernard Dort has studied the same problem from the viewpoint of the historic and philosophic evolution of Corneille's theater. Although the physical groupings of the plays frequently correspond, Dort's analysis differs from the present one, which proposes to discuss the works primarily in relation to their structure rather than their ideological content.
4 Although Clitandre is a tragi-comedy, it can be studied with the five comedies. Rivaille advances the hypothesis that the play was originally a comedy on which a political allegory was superimposed (v. Les Débuts, pp. 75–81, 99–100). In any case, the importance of tricks in the plot justifies its inclusion in the present grouping.
5 Georges Couton, Corneille, Connaissance des lettres, 52 (Paris: Hatier, 1958), p. 10.
6 In a comparison too sweeping to be completely accurate, Jean Starobinski draws the following parallel between the attitudes of the early comic hero and his later, tragic counterpart: “Dans les œuvres du début, le héros n'est qu'un personnage ébloui; dans les œuvres de la maturité, il se voudra éblouissant … De passif qu'il était, l'éblouissement va désormais procéder du ‘je veux’ actif.” “Sur Corneille,” L'Œil vivant: essai, Le Chemin (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), p. 56.
7 Corneille, “Examen,” Clitandre, i, 270–271.
8 Corneille, La Suivante, Vol. ii, iv.viii, ix.
9 Alidor's inherent amorality becomes apparent, if we consider that he is at the same time the hero and the originator of the “fourbe,” the protagonist and the antagonist.
10 Starobinski, “Sur Corneille,” p. 58.
11 Although it is only Corneille's tragedies of the period that are under discussion, the observations, with some modifications, can apply also to Andromède (1647) and Don Sanche d'Aragon (1648–49?).
12 Rivaille, Les Débuts, p. 117.
13 Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle (Paris: Domat, 1954), iv, 237.
14 As an indication of a new tragic vision in Corneille, one should note that the two plays preceding Suréna, Tite et Bérénice (1670) and Pulchérie (1671–72), where a noble decision permits a non-sanguinary ending, are classified as “comédies héroïques.”
15 Nadal compares Alidor to Attila (Le Sentiment, p. 111), while Dort extends the parallel to include Suréna (Pierre Corneille, pp. 121, 130–131).
16 Armand Gasté, ed. La Querelle du Cid: Pieces et pamphlets (Paris, 1898), p. 65.