Almost the first thing which strikes a reader is the singular inequality of this poet, and the attempts to explain this inequality, in reference to his own and other theories, leave the fact untouched. 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, bizarreté, but the faults which we are apt to regard as exclusively belonging to those who lack genius, to wit, the dulness and tediousness of mediocrity. Molière’s manner of accounting for this is famous in literary history or legend. “My friend Corneille,” he said, “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 very badly.” That Corneille was by no means destitute of the critical faculty his Discourses and the Examens of his plays (often admirably acute, and, with Dryden’s subsequent prefaces, the originals to a great extent of specially modern criticism) show well enough. But an enemy might certainly contend that a poet’s critical faculty should be of the Promethean, not be Epimethean order. The fact seems to be that the form in which Corneille’s work was cast, and which by an odd irony of fate he did so much to originate and make popular, was very partially suited to his talents. He could imagine admirable situations, and he could write verses of incomparable grandeur—verses that reverberate again and again in the memory, but he could not, with the patient docility of Racine, labour at proportioning the action of a tragedy strictly, at maintaining a uniform rate of interest in the course of the plot and of excellence in the fashion of the verse. Especially in his later plays a verse and a couplet will crash out with fulgurous brilliancy, and then be succeeded by pages of very second-rate declamation or argument. It was urged against him also by the party of the Doucereux, as he called them, that he could not manage, or did not attempt, the great passion of love, and that except in the case of Chimène his principle seemed to be that of one of his own heroines:—
| “Laissons, seigneur, laissons pour les petites âmes Ce commerce rampant de soupirs et de flammes.” (Aristie in Sertorius.) |
There is perhaps some truth in this accusation, however much some of us may be disposed to think that the line just quoted is a fair enough description of the admired ecstasies of Achille and Bajazet. But these are all the defects which can be fairly urged against him; and in a dramatist bound to a less strict service they would hardly have been even remarked. They certainly neither require, nor are palliated by, theories of his “megalomania,” of his excessive attention to conflicts of will and the like. On the English stage the liberty of unrestricted incident and complicated action, the power of multiplying characters and introducing prose scenes, would have exactly suited his somewhat intermittent genius, both by covering defects and by giving greater scope for the exhibition of power.
How great that power is can escape no one. The splendid soliloquies of Medea which, as Voltaire happily says, “annoncent Corneille,” the entire parts of Rodogune and Chimène, the final speech of Camille in Horace, the discovery scene of Cinna, the dialogues of Pauline and Sévère in Polyeucte, the magnificently-contrasted conception and exhibition of the best and worst forms of feminine dignity in the Cornélie of Pompée and the Cléopâtre of Rodogune, the singularly fine contrast in Don Sanche d’Aragon, between the haughtiness of the Spanish nobles and the unshaken dignity of the supposed adventurer Carlos, and the characters of Aristie, Viriate and Sertorius himself, in the play named after the latter, are not to be surpassed in grandeur of thought, felicity of design or appropriateness of language. “Admiration” may or may not properly be excited by tragedy, and until this important question is settled the name of tragedian may be at pleasure given to or withheld from the author of Rodogune. 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.
The Plays.—It was, however, some time before his genius came to perfection. It is undeniable that the first six or seven of his plays are of no very striking intrinsic merit. On the other hand, it requires only a very slight acquaintance with the state of the drama in France at the time to see that these works, poor as they may now seem, must have struck the spectators as something new and surprising. The language and dialogue of Mélite are on the whole simple and natural, and though the construction is not very artful (the fifth act being, as is not unusual in Corneille, superfluous and clumsy), it is still passable. The fact that one of the characters jumps on another’s back, and the rather promiscuous kissing which takes place, are nothing to the liberties usually taken in contemporary plays. A worse fault is the στιχομυθία, or, to borrow Butler’s expression, the Cat-and-Puss dialogue, which abounds. But the common objection to the play at the time was that it was too natural and too devoid of striking incidents. Corneille accordingly, as he tells us, set to work to cure these faults, and produced a truly wonderful work, Clitandre. Murders, combats, escapes and outrages of all kinds are provided; and the language makes The Rehearsal no burlesque. One of the heroines rescues herself from a ravisher by blinding him with a hair-pin, and as she escapes the seducer apostrophizes the blood which trickles from his eye, and the weapon which has wounded it, in a speech forty verses long. This, however, was his only attempt of the kind. For his next four pieces, which were comedies, there is claimed the introduction of some important improvements, such as the choosing for scenes places well known in actual life (as in the Galerie du palais), and the substitution of the soubrette in place of the old inconvenient and grotesque nurse. It is certain, however, that there is more interval between these six plays and Médée than between the latter and Corneille’s greatest drama. Here first do we find those sudden and magnificent lines which characterize the poet. The title-rôle is, however, the only good one, and as a whole the play is heavy. Much the same may be said of its curious successor L’Illusion comique. This is not only a play within a play, but in part of it there is actually a third involution, one set of characters beholding another set discharging the parts of yet another. It contains, however, some very fine lines, in particular, a defence of the stage and some heroics put into the mouth of a braggadocio. We have seen it said of the Cid that it is difficult to understand the enthusiasm it excited. But the difficulty can only exist for persons who are insensible to dramatic excellence, or who so strongly object to the forms of the French drama that they cannot relish anything so presented. Rodrigue, Chimène, Don Diègue are not of any age, but of all time. The conflicting passions of love, honour, duty, are here represented as they never had been on a French stage, and in the “strong style” which was Corneille’s own. Of the many objections urged against the play, perhaps the weightiest is that which condemns the frigid and superfluous part of the Infanta. Horace, though more skilfully constructed, is perhaps less satisfactory. There is a hardness about the younger Horace which might have been, but is not made, imposing, and Sabine’s effect on the action is quite out of proportion to the space she occupies. The splendid declamation of Camille, and the excellent part of the elder Horace, do not altogether atone for these defects. Cinna is perhaps generally considered the poet’s masterpiece, and it undoubtedly contains the finest single scene in all French tragedy. The blot on it is certainly the character of Émilie, who is spiteful and thankless, not heroic. Polyeucte has sometimes been elevated to the same position. There is, however, a certain coolness about the hero’s affection for his wife which somewhat detracts from the merit of his sacrifice; while the Christian part of the matter is scarcely so well treated as in the Saint Genest of Rotrou or the Virgin Martyr of Massinger. On the other hand, the entire parts of Pauline and Sévère are beyond praise, and the manner in which the former reconciles her duty as a wife with her affection for her lover is an astonishing success. In Pompée (for La Mort de Pompée, though the more appropriate, was not the original title) the splendid declamation of Cornélie is the chief thing to be remarked. Le Menteur fully deserves the honour which Molière paid to it. Its continuation, notwithstanding the judgment of some French critics, we cannot think so happy. But Théodore is perhaps the most surprising of literary anomalies. The central situation, which so greatly shocked Voltaire and indeed all French critics from the date of the piece, does not seem to blame. A virgin martyr who is threatened with loss of honour as a bitterer punishment than loss of life offers points as powerful as they are perilous. But the treatment is thoroughly bad. From the heroine who is, in a phrase of Dryden’s, “one of the coolest and most insignificant” heroines ever drawn, to the undignified Valens, the termagant Marcelle, and the peevish Placide, there is hardly a good character. Immediately upon this in most printed editions, though older in representation, follows the play which (therein agreeing rather with the author than with his critics) we should rank as his greatest triumph, Rodogune. Here there is hardly a weak point. The magnificent and terrible character of Cléopâtre, and the contrasted dispositions of the two princes, of course attract most attention. But the character of Rodogune herself, which has not escaped criticism, comes hardly short of these. Héraclius, despite great art and much fine poetry, is injured by the extreme complication of its argument and by the blustering part of Pulchérie. Andromède, with the later spectacle piece, the Toison d’or, do not call for comment, and we have already alluded to the chief merit of Don Sanche. Nicomède, often considered one of Corneille’s best plays, is chiefly remarkable for the curious and unusual character of its hero. Of Pertharite it need only be said that no single critic has to our knowledge disputed the justice of its damnation. Œdipe is certainly unworthy of its subject and its author, but in Sertorius we have one of Corneille’s finest plays. It is remarkable not only for its many splendid verses and for the nobility of its sentiment, but from the fact that not one of its characters lacks interest, a commendation not generally to be bestowed on its author’s work. Of the last six plays we may say that perhaps only one of them, Agésilas, is almost wholly worthless. Not a few speeches of Suréna and of Othon are of a very high order. As to the poet’s non-dramatic works, we have already spoken of his extremely interesting critical dissertations. His minor poems and poetical devotions are not likely to be read save from motives of duty or curiosity. The verse translation of à Kempis, indeed, which was in its day immensely popular (it passed through many editions), condemns itself.
Bibliography.—The subject of the bibliography of Corneille was treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in his Bibliographie Cornélienne (Paris, 1875-1876). Less elaborate, but still ample information may be found in J. A. Taschereau’s Vie and in M. Marty-Laveaux’s edition of the Works. The individual plays were usually printed a year or two after their first appearance: but these dates have been subjected to confusion and to controversy, and it seems better to refer for them to the works quoted and to be quoted. The chief collected editions in the poet’s lifetime were those of 1644, 1648, 1652, 1660 (with important corrections), 1664 and 1682, which gives the definitive text. In 1692 T. Corneille published a complete Théâtre in 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam) containing the Œuvres diverses as well as the plays. Several editions are recorded between this and that of Voltaire (12 vols. 8vo; Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whose Commentaires have often been reprinted separately. In the year IX. (1801) appeared an edition of the Works with Voltaire’s commentary and criticisms thereon by Palissot (12 vols. 8vo, Paris). Since this the editions have been extremely numerous. Those chiefly to be remarked are the following. Lefèvre’s (12 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful variorum commentary, lacks bibliographical information and is disfigured by hideous engravings. Of Taschereau’s, in the Bibliothèque elzévirienne, only two volumes were published. Lahure’s appeared in 5 vols. (1857-1862) and 7 vols. (1864-1866). The edition of Ch. Marty-Laveaux in Regnier’s Grands Écrivains de la France (1862-1868), in 12 vols. 8vo, is still the standard. In appearance and careful editing it leaves nothing to desire, containing the entire works, a lexicon, full bibliographical information, and an album of illustrations of the poet’s places of residence, his arms, some title-pages of his plays, facsimiles of his writings, &c. Nothing is wanting but variorum comments, which Lefèvre’s edition supplies. Fontenelle’s life of his uncle is the chief original authority on that subject, but Taschereau’s Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de P. Corneille (1st ed. 1829, 2nd in the Bibl. elzévirienne, 1855) is the standard work. Its information has been corrected and augmented in various later publications, but not materially. Of the exceedingly numerous writings relative to Corneille we may mention the Recueil de dissertations sur plusieurs tragédies de Corneille et de Racine of the abbé Granet (Paris, 1740), the criticisms already alluded to of Voltaire, La Harpe and Palissot, the well-known work of Guizot, first published as Vie de Corneille in 1813 and revised as Corneille et son temps in 1852, and the essays, repeated in his Portraits littéraires, in Port-Royal, and in the Nouveaux Lundis of Sainte-Beuve. More recently, besides essays by MM. Brunetière, Faguet and Lemaître and the part appurtenant of M. E. Rigal’s work on 16th century drama in France, see Gustave Lanson’s “Corneille” in the Grands Écrivains français (1898); F. Bouquet’s Points obscurs et nouveaux de la vie de Pierre Corneille (1888); Corneille inconnu, by J. Levallois (1876); J. Lemaître, Corneille et la poétique d’Aristote (1888); J. B. Segall, Corneille and the Spanish Drama (1902); and the recently discovered and printed Fragments sur Pierre et Thomas Corneille of Alfred de Vigny (1905). On the Cid quarrel E. H. Chardon’s Vie de Rotrou (1884) bears mainly on a whole series of documents which appeared at Rouen in the proceedings of the Société des bibliophiles normands during the years 1891-1894. The best-known English criticism, that of Hallam in his Literature of Europe, is inadequate. The translations of separate plays are very numerous, but of the complete Théâtre only one version (into Italian) is recorded by the French editors. Fontenelle tells us that his uncle had translations of the Cid in every European tongue but Turkish and Slavonic, and M. Picot’s book apprises us that the latter want, at any rate, is now supplied. Corneille has suffered less than some other writers from the attribution of spurious works. Besides a tragedy, Sylla, the chief piece thus assigned is L’Occasion perdue recouverte, a rather loose tale in verse. Internal evidence by no means fathers it on Corneille, and all external testimony is against it. It has never been included in Corneille’s works. It is curious that a translation of Statius (Thebaid, bk. iii.), an author of whom Corneille was extremely fond, though known to have been written, printed and published, has entirely dropped out of sight. Three verses quoted by Ménage are all we possess.
(G. Sa.)
CORNEILLE, THOMAS (1625-1709), French dramatist, was born at Rouen on the 20th of August 1625, being nearly twenty years younger than his brother, the great Corneille. His skill in verse-making seems to have shown itself early, as at the age of fifteen he composed a piece in Latin which was represented by his fellow-pupils at the Jesuits’ college of Rouen. His first French play, Les Engagements du hasard, was acted in 1647. Le Feint Astrologue, imitated from the Spanish, and imitated by Dryden, came next year. At his brother’s death he succeeded to his vacant chair in the Academy. He then turned his attention to philology, producing a new edition of the Remarques of C. F. Vaugelas in 1687, and in 1694 a dictionary of technical terms, intended to supplement that of the Academy. A complete translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (he had published six books with the Heroic Epistles some years previously) followed in 1697. In 1704 he lost his sight and was constituted a “veteran,” a dignity which preserved to him the privileges, while it exempted him from the duties, of an academician. But he did not allow his misfortune to put a stop to his work, and in 1708 produced a large Dictionnaire universel géographique et historique in three volumes folio. This was his last labour. He died at Les Andelys on the 8th of December 1709, aged eighty-four. It has been the custom to speak of Thomas Corneille as of one who, but for the name he bore, would merit no notice. This is by no means the case; on the contrary, he is rather to be commiserated for his connexion with a brother who outshone him as he would have outshone almost any one. But the two were strongly attached to one another, and practically lived in common. Of his forty-two plays (this is the utmost number assigned to him) the last edition of his complete works contains only thirty-two, but he wrote several in conjunction with other authors. Two are usually reprinted as his masterpieces at the end of his brother’s selected works. These are Ariane (1672) and the Comte d’ Essex, in the former of which Rachel attained success. But of Laodice, Camma, Stilica and some other pieces, Pierre Corneille himself said that “he wished he had written them,” and he was not wont to speak lightly. Camma (1661, on the same story as Tennyson’s Cup) especially deserves notice. Thomas Corneille is in many ways remarkable in the literary gossip-history of his time. His Timocrate boasted of the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play in the century. For La Devineresse he and his coadjutor de Visé (1638-1710, founder of the Mercure galant, to which Thomas contributed) received above 6000 livres, the largest sum known to have been thus paid. Lastly, one of his pieces (Le Baron des Fondrières) contests the honour of being the first which was hissed off the stage.
There is a monograph, Thomas Corneille, sa vie et ses ouvrages (1892), by G. Reynier. See also the Fragments inédits de critique sur Pierre et Thomas Corneille of Alfred de Vigny, published in 1905.