The "Tragic" Theatre of Corneille

Author(s): Leonard Wang

Source: The French Review, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jan., 1952), pp. 182-191
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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 THE "TRAGIC" THEATRE OF CORNEILLE

LEONARD WANG

Columbia University

Pierre Corneille, today as for the past three hundred years, is

the most paradoxical situations that a man of his reputation an
could be in. He is known for something other than he is and p
what he is not. His theatre, which constitutes thirty-three pla
includes Psyche, is often envisaged as a massive and undifferentia
monotonous in its consistency and lack of diversity. However, fo
of over forty-five creative years, with an insatiable thirst for n
with one eye constantly on the box office and his temperament
the dramatist continuously sought to renew his techniques of dr
pression and to diversify the forms of his plays. His enterpris
embraced many of the dramatic forms of his day, ever seeking to im
them with something different, novel, and rare. Entering the th
time when the unities and other standards of "regularity" had
exerted a restricting influence upon the playwrights of the day
posed a series of charming and discreetly sentimental "com6dies d
whose purpose, we are told in the first preface of La Veuve, was
portrait de nos actions et de nos discours." Years later, at a time
was the undisputed master of the theatre, he stated in the Examen o
that the encouraging success of these works was due to the fact
for the first time, comedy had produced laughter without resort
use of parasites, buffoons, and others of their tribe. During this sam
of apprenticeship, which exercised a profound and lasting influe
his entire subsequent production, he produced an adaptation of
Medea and two tragi-comedies. The latter of these, Le Cid, was d
establish Corneille's fame and to be largely responsible for the to
of his earlier production. Last but not least, the dramatist's love
mentation brought him to produce the Illusion comique. This p
its recreation of that delightful and fantastic braggadocio of ant
miles gloriosus, defied generic classification, for as the poet humoro
marked in its dedicatory epistle, "Le premier acte n'est qu'un pr
trois suivants font une comedie imparfaite, le dernier est une tr
tout cela, cousu ensemble, fait une comedie."
From 1640 on, that is to say from the time of Corneille's retu
theatre after the Cid quarrel to the end of his life, the drama
only two more comedies purely in the old vein, Le Menteur and
devoting his creative talent entirely to machine plays, heroic com
what he, his contemporaries, and his posterity considered to be
182

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 THE "cTRAGIC") THEATRE OF CORNEILLE 183

He experimented with the vers libre in his Ag~silas, thereby pavin

for the Amphitryon of Molibre, and planted the seeds for Did
of the tragbdie bourgeoise. That he tried to diversify the locales o
as much as their very forms is just as evident. Their action ta
Paris, Rome, Carthage, Lombardy, Spain, Parthia, and Gr
the most widely separated epochs of history. Nothing then
unjust than to consider this theatre rigidly uniform. There is
diversity, but it is unity based on the revitalization of many
niques and not merely their mechanical recurrence.
The Cornelian hero, like the very structure of the theatre itself
been considered an undifferentiated being whose very force is der
the unity of his nature. Critics have variously described him a
pibce," formidable, impassive and stoical, a consummate mas
art of self restraint, and a striking example of the supremacy
It is this last which has often been characterized as the primar
force of the hero's actions. However, some contemporary stu
Corneille, far from recognizing the validity of such a principle, h
completely away from it. They observe that it can only strip t
theatre of its vigor, vitality, and dynamic force and that far
propellant of dramatic action it can only congeal and solidify i
compromising immobility. For them the great energy of the hero
deep in his emotional being. Sensibility and passion are the f
impel him to act and which govern his actions, and all the aff
the sovereignty of his reason and the omnipotence of his w
masks behind which he attempts to hide the violence of his passio
In still another respect there are differing schools of thought w
ence to the Cornelian theatre. The more traditional group, incl
and Faguet, considers Corneille's art as one of penetrating ps
insight. The conflicts in his plays are all the more intense bec
psychological conflicts. The dramatist has carefully worked ou
psychology in which the origin, development, and execution of
constantly displayed before us in a mercilessly closed system
effect. However recent critics, such as Jean Boorsch and Geo
have shown themselves unsympathetic to these views. They
as a man of the theatre Corneille was entirely unconcerned wit
ing an abstract psychological system or any other kind of system
it is held, conceived of his plays as machines to produce emotions,
emotions such as admiration or fear, in the hearts of his spe
sole purpose was to "6mouvoir." To speak of psychology in his
misunderstand them completely. Indeed, psychological d6nou
not only absent from this theatre but were scrupulously avo
author himself.

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 184 THE FRENCH REVIEW

The same opposition between traditional

be observed concerning the morality of t
the seventeenth century it has been persi
heroes are high minded, high principled,
perior form of humanity. La Bruybre, in
Corneille and Racine in Les Caractares, de
moral, Racine plus naturel. Il semble que l
doit plus A Euripide." Many writers, si
opinion, have enlarged upon it. Thus Lanso
plays has a virtuous and moral character, a
suffused with moral grandeur and nobility
been seriously questioned, for while som
Polyeucte, and Th6odore, are unquestionab
more are monsters and criminals who seek
of the most heinous and abominable acts.
recall that Corneille chose as his heroes
murderous Clopitre of Rodogune, and man
at neither duplicity nor brutal assassinatio
the royal sceptre. In view of this it is incorr
theatre is a school for moral conduct. Nor would the author himself have
so asserted, for in his Discours de l'utilit6 et des parties du poeme dramatique
he tells us that what he sought to depict was "le caractere brillant et 61ev6
d'une habitude vertueuse ou criminelle."
There is one other tradition which has not been thoroughly probed and
which perhaps most of all is deserving of critical attention-that of Cor-
neille the tragedian. For nearly three hundred years now the theatre of
Corneille has been almost universally characterized as a tragic theatre.
For nearly three hundred years he has been put in the same class as Sopho-
cles and Racine and has been spoken of with reverence as the father of
French tragedy. This tradition has been passed on from generation to
generation unquestioned and uncontradicted by writers great and small.
Racine, Corneille's greatest rival, must be considered one of the first to
support it. On January 2, 1685, he delivered a Discours 4 l'Acad6mie wel-
coming the younger Corneille into the French Academy to take the place
of his brother, recently deceased. In it he spoke with unmitigated praise
of his former competitor, claiming that he had withdrawn the French
theatre from the chaos, disorder, and irregularity in which he had found
it, and comparing him not to the Roman tragedians who he said had not
been successful in the genre "Mais aux Eschyle, aux Sophocle, aux Euri-
pide" who, to the hellenist author of Phidre, were the tragedians most
eminently worthy of the name. Fontenelle, who would be expected to be
particularly partial to Corneille, declared in his famous life of the poet that

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 THE "TRAGIC" THEATRE OF CORNEILLE 185

tragedy in France owed as much to Corneille as comedy did

Voltaire, who was at other times one of the severest critic
and who dealt him many blows in the course of his commen
hesitate to acknowledge him as the founder of French trag
recent times well known critics reaffirmed the old claim, b
sumptions on a more consistently scholarly approach. "Ava
Lanson, "la trag6die classique n'existait pas. Par lui elle a ex
qui l'a d6tach6e tout a fait de la trag6die grecque, po6tique
qui en a fait une espece distincte et oppos6e. Il l'a pourv
instruments, organes, caracteres. Il en a montr6 les propri6
And at the midpoint of the twentieth century the tradition
been abandoned. Today as ever, scholars refer to Corneille as
of French tragedy.
But if the preponderant number of Cornelian critics have c
still consider his works tragedies, others have at times disse
early as the seventeenth century there has been a steady tho
undercurrent of critical opinion which has denied that all of
tragic. Boileau, we are told in the Bolmana, was not at all pl
Othon because it was composed entirely of "raisonnemens"
no tragic action. A famous seventeenth-century Aristotelian
Dacier, observed in his Remarques sur la poetique d'Aristote (
Nicomede and other plays like it could not be considered tra
they did not produce pity and terror in the hearts of the s
neille, he said, had sought to produce only the sentiment of
the souls of his audiences, but admiration can in no wise b
tragic emotion. In the eighteenth century Voltaire, who th
commentaries criticized Corneille for not inspiring tragic
in r6sum4 that the poet was a resourceful dramatist, and th
most unfruitful subjects, but that these resources quite of
little that was tragic. And closer to our own times Ferdina
is reported to have remarked that Le Cid, Horace, Cinna, an
were a constant source of embarrassment for him. Had they
he would have called Corneille primarily a comic poet and i
cellent comic poet!2
But these voices were lost in the wind. Few gave credence to
of a seventeenth-century scholar, to an eighteenth-century
reputed to be an enemy of Corneille, or to the half facetious
eminent nineteenth-century savant. It is only in recent time
of protest became a challenge. M. Jean Schlumberger ma
Corneille was fundamentally a writer of heroic comedies an
I Gustave Lanson, Corneille, 2nd ed., Paris, Hachette, 1905, p. 187
2 Reported in ]Pmile Faguet, En lisant Corneille, Paris, Hachette,

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 186 THE FRENCH REVIEW

except a half-dozen or so of his plays th

everywhere.3 That the scholarly efforts of
cognizance of and been influenced by M
unquestionable. Never before in the histo
an array of studies disclosed the multipl
niques in many of his plays. Several of
shown that a great number of the them
larly found in the majority of the dram
origin in the comedies which he wrote b
However, if on the one hand these stud
Cornelian theatre which had not been b
they have only complicated an already t
these scholars recognize that the drama
techniques, scenes, and situations, and
tendus, and comic personages in more t
still cling to the old tradition and speak
moreover, is often done in sentences wh
word tragedy of any possible significan
mark has recently been made about the
que le sublime est cette chose extraordi
admiration, on saisit la source et l'effet
l'esth6tique aristot6licienne. A ce point
qu'un refus du tragique; son ancien pou
images farouches et pitoyables cde A un
1'homme dans sa gloire et dans son reg
bordering on the paradoxical, are in dire n
There are, however, further complica
been almost universally recognized as a g
French dramatists have so closely caugh
so profoundly analyzed the grandeur an
and the desperate efforts of man to com
are the critics who would have it other
if one examines the textual remarks on
whom claim that Corneille is a tragedia
with an abundance of contradictory stat
the expression "Corneille the tragedian."
have been variously called "m6lodrames
3 Jean Schlumberger, "Corneille," La Nouvell
1929, p. 337. Also see M. Schlumberger's Plai
p. 11.
4 Octave Nadal, Le Sentiment de l'amour dans l'oeuvre de Corneille, Paris, Galli-
mard, 1948, p. 140.

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 THE "TRAGIC)) THEATRE OF CORNEILLE 187

policiers de bas 6tage."5 Let us, for the purpose of demon

at length two plays of Corneille written at widely separ
career, Nicomede (1651) and Agqsilas (1666).
Nicomede has long been considered one of the bulwarks
theatre and, what is more, a model Cornelian tragedy. An
three centuries it has been bombarded from all sides by criti
they speak for the most part of Corneille as the father of
cannot see anything tragic in it. In the eighteenth centur
Lekain described in his Memoires the difficulties that he and his confr&res
experienced in trying to prevent this play from abandoning the buskin and
donning the sock. Only the great Baron, he said, had been able to conceal
successfully the comic elements which are inherent in it. During this same
period Lekain's patron, Voltaire, with less reverence for what he considered
an incorrect classification, alleged that no less than Don Sanche d'Aragon
the play should be called a comedy. An edition of the work, published in
1757, called it a tragi-comedy, and to this very day more than one com-
mentator has designated it by that name." In its travels along the years
it has been variously called a "com6die de caractbre," a "com6die h6roi-
que," a "com6die historique," a "com6die tragique" and a "drame."7
Such contradiction may be perplexing, perhaps even a bit amusing. But
there is one point upon which all or most of these critics agree, namely
that there is a fundamental discrepancy between the tone, content, struc-
ture, and form of this play and the word tragedie printed in bold type on its
title page. Even those critics who call the play a tragedy observe, curiously
enough, that the tragic element is missing in it: "Nicomede est le terme et
l'6panouissement de la trag6die corn6lienne: type d'une piece attachante
par l'intrigue et par la psychologie, sans path6tique, ni tragique."8
The Agesilas has suffered a similar fate. This charming and unjustifiably
disparaged play was relegated to the archives of the literary museum very
5 Cf. Georges May, Tragedie cornBlienne-tragedie racinienne, Urbana, The Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1948, pp. 58-59.
6 Cf. Augustin Gazier, "Pierre Corneille et le th6Atre frangais," Revue des Cours
et des Conferences, XV, series 1, (nov. 1906-mars 1907), 67. See also Jean Schlum-
berger, Plaisir a Corneille, p. 160.
7 Cf. in order of presentation Paul Desjardins, La Methode des classiques francais,
Paris, Armand Colin, 1904, p. 160; Rmile Faguet, En lisant Corneille, Paris, Hachette,
1913, p. 180, and Jean Boorsch, "L'Invention chez Corneille," Yale Romanic Studies,
XXII, (1943), 120; Emile Faguet, op. cit., p. 180; Robert Brasillach, "Pierre Corneille,
la tentation de la volont4," La Revue Universelle, LXXII, (jan.-mars 1938), 573;
Gustave Michaut, "Le Nicomede de Corneille et le drame moderne," Annales de l'Uni-
versith de Paris, IX, (1934), 138.
8 Gustave Lanson, Esquisse d'une histoire de la tragedie frangaise, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1920, p. 61. See also Ram6n Fernandez, La Vie de Molibre,
6th ed., Paris, Gallimard, 1929, p. 64.

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 188 THE FRENCH REVIEW

early in its career. Pere Tournemine was o

inter it from oblivion by establishing the g
belonged. The play, he observed, was no
masterpieces, but it was nevertheless an
gofit nouveau."9 More recently critics ha
no means a tragedy. ". . . on pourra s'4to
Corneille, si soigneux de ranger ses pisce
appeler celle-ci tragdie . . ."0 M. Schlum
post6rit6 n'a guere eu la curiosit6 de sou
cette piece son absurde titre de "Tragedi
leau.""' Like Nicomede it has been classifi
of it as a "com6die sentimentale," as a "m
a tragedy," as a "com6die en vers libres,"
dage h6roique."12 Its most recent classifi
doxical. "Au vrai," claims the author,
faudrait baptiser du nom nouveau de "
aucun des genres ordinairement recon
jamais sang y coule: ni la terreur ni la pit
traditionnelle; m~me pour une tragi-com6
cette piece oui l'on respire la joie de vivre
consultent leurs cceurs, le pire mal est le
one is confronted by contradictory rem
mously agree that the tragic is absent fr
The same mechanism is demonstrable fo
For example, La Mort de Pomp6e was he
the eighteenth century. In our times crit
its proper classification. Pompee seems to
tory than a purposeful play.""4 To another

9 Pere Tournemine, Dgfense du grand Corneil

toire du theatre francois, Paris, Le Mercier et
10 Leon Lemonnier, Corneille, Paris, Tallandi
11 Jean Schlumberger, Plaisir d Corneille, p. 2
he is referring to the devastating epigram wh
and which has served to characterize it for gen
12 Cf. in order of presentation Gustave Lanso
p. 165; Henry C. Lancaster, A History of French
Century, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press
lach, "Pierre Corneille, la tentation du roman
(jan.-mars 1938), 446; Henri Bremond, Racine et
13 Georges Couton, La Vieillesse de Corneil
1949, p. 127.
14 Lawrence Riddle, The Genesis and Sources of Pierre Corneille's Tragedies from
M6d6e to Pertharite, published in The Johns Hopkins Studies in Romance Literatures
and Languages, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1926, III, 83.

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 THE "TRAGIC " THEATRE OF CORNEILLE 189

6loquent et vide."'1 Indeed one commentator, frankly perp

more than one classification: "A la suite de Lucain, Cornei
que: son oeuvre est une 6pop6e tragique ou une trag6die 6piq
voudra.... Voltaire et La Harpe n'ont pas manqu6 de lui rep
trag6die, qui n'en est pas une. Les modernes, moins diffic
Pomp'e est tout simplement un fragment d'4popee. . ."16
Turning to the criticism relative to the more popular pla
in the expectation of finding them unanimously called tr
sure to be disappointed. As far as Horace is concerned "One
divergent discussions on the type of tragedy it presents, but it
ing to find half of the experts telling us that it is not a tr
Rodogune has persistently been called a melodrama. "Sarce
dit: 'Rodogune, est-ce autre chose qu'un mdlodrame?' Et
sujet, mais ce n'est qu'un sujet de mblodrame.' Nous releve
eh oui! c'est un mdlodrame, pourquoi pas?"'i Indeed, even t
escaped unscathed. This play, although it was originally
tragi-comedy, was later called a tragedy by Corneille himse
considered such in many quarters. But M. Louis Rivaille, t
the most comprehensive study to date of Corneille's early c
though he does not disclaim the existence of tragic elemen
has shown for the first time that the sources and techniq
are deeply rooted in these very works. In style, structure,
portrayal, and situations it is their direct descendant. Onl
all the plays from Melite through the Illusion comique will pro
understanding of Corneille's first masterpiece.'9
In the light of the preceding remarks one thing becomes acut
namely that there is a definite need for an intensive and ex
of the underlying spirit of the Cornelian theatre. For, paradox
although there have been many excellent studies on various
dramatist's work, it has never been determined whether or
a tragic art. On what basis could it be considered such? Tr
might define it, represents an attitude toward life and the hum

16 Robert Brasillach, Pierre Corneille, Paris, Librairie Arthem

p. 236.
16 Augustin Gazier, "Pierre Corneille et le th6Atre frangais," Revue des Cours et
des Conferences, XIV2, (mai-juillet 1906), 617.
17 W. Moore, "Corneille's Horace and French Classical Drama", Modern Language
Review, XXXIV, (1939), 383.
Is Jean Boorsch, "Remarques sur la technique dramatique de Corneille," Yale
Romanic Studies, XVIII, (1941), 139.
19 Louis Rivaille, "Ce que Le Cid doit aux ceuvres ant6rieures de Corneille,"
Memoires de l'Acade'mie Nationale des Sciences, Arts, et Belles-Lettres de Caen, nouvelle
s6rie, IX, (1939), 90-98.

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190 THE FRENCH REVIEW

It presents a hero who attempts to orga

who is made more and more painfully
instability of his being, of his incapacity t
ing forces in his nature, and of the omn
fate, chance, or some inner failing) which
conception of himself.
The Cornelian theatre, on the other h
dedicated to the total liberty of man, t
the humiliations of fortune. Complete
himself, the Cornelian hero recognizes n
known, the irrational, the absurd, the my
have no meaning whatsoever for him.
proud and defiant hymn to his liberty,
himself "au-dessus du sort" or "au-dessu
opportunity to confront fortune and to
refuses it if offered, and regards huma
tempt. Unlike the tragic hero who disco
of his soul only towards the end of the, pl
disastrous mistakes, he understands him
pletely and with remarkable accuracy a
in most cases does not change from th
parity between his desire, his goal, and
itself be his ultimate reward he remain
dying with the certain knowledge that h
to his most intimate conception of h[imsel
Such a hero possesses epic rather than
and superior to the human condition, h
spirable for the greater part of the human
the sympathetic emotional identificati
condition, however, which is a fundame
ence. M. Schlumberger remarks that in
"l'imbroglio reste gratuit et ... le spectat
mais les considbre de l'ext6rieur, comme
ques (ce qui accrott l'int6r~t mais r6duit
is believed, lies the key to the correct
Through its adequate development (whi
can be shown that the parallel between
sounder basis than that between Racine and Corneille!
The spectator, it will be remembered, dominates the comic character of
Molibre, who is hypnotized by an idle fixe and is isolated from reality.
20 Jean Schlumberger, "Corneille," La Nouvelle Revue Frangaise, juillet-d6cembre
1929, p. 339.

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 THE cTRAGIC") THEATRE OF CORNEILLE 191

There is no identification present. On the contrary, feeling hims

to the comic personage, the spectator detaches himself from
templates him from above. In the plays of Corneille a simila
takes place, but the position of spectator and personage is in
Cornelian hero, self-contained, superior to fate, chance, and
consequently above the spectator who can claim no such prer
same detachment takes place before Horace, Polyeucte, or Su
before Orgon, Harpagon, or Arnolphe. But this time the spe
templates the protagonist from below and is dominated by
mires" him, that is to say he is astonished at his prowess, he m
superhuman demands that the hero makes upon himself, and
by his successes, but he can in no wise identify himself wit
condition.
For all these reasons it may now be claimed that Corneille is not a writer
of tragedies but of heroic comedies. It may furthermore be maintained that
there is no definition of tragedy, however broad and comprehensive, that
will fit his work. An investigation of the subject would do much to com-
plete the facelifting which his work has recently undergone and to restore
to it its youthful vitality and fundamental significance. It would contribute
greatly to our understanding of an important aspect of the literature of
the golden age.

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