CORNEILLE, PIERRE. - Tragic poet, b. at Rouen on June 6, 1606, d. at Paris on Sept. 30, 1684.
His biography, with few external events, offers the vigorous profile of an intense inner life. A pupil of the Jesuits (1615-22), from a classically and Christianly molded formation he drew his ethical vision of life. He began a forensic career, soon withdrawing from it to follow freely his poetic vocation. At the age of 30 he staged the Cid with triumphant success. Received into the Academy in 1647, in 1663 he was granted a royal pension, which was then barely maintained for him. He spent his last years in solitary sadness, in the decline of his fortunes.
He made his debut in 1630 with a pastoral comedy, Mélite, followed by Clitandre, La veuve, La Galerie du palais, La Place royale and La suivante. The first tragedy, Médée, with its pronounced Baroque projection, dates from 1635. L'illusion comique, a comedy of 1636, contemplates with shrewd complacency the life of actors.
The cycle of C.'s great tragic production extends from 1636 to 1642 and consists of 4 works, the Cid, Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte, which, by the analogy of their formal characteristics and their high substantial value, constitute the "Cornelian quadrilateral."
The dramatic quality of the Cid is given by the conflict, in the soul of the protagonist Ximena, between love for Rodrigo and honor, wounded in her by the very man she loves through the killing of her father.
In Horace, on the other hand, on a classical subject, love comes into conflict with civic duty, and Camilla dies so that Rome may live. Cinna, also on a classical subject, is centered on the magnanimous wavering of the Emperor Augustus's feelings.
In Polyeucte (from the story of St. Polyeuctus, reported by a Byzantine menologion), the action takes place in the capital of Armenia, under the Emperor Decius. Pauline, daughter of Felix, Roman governor of Armenia, is given in marriage to Polyeuctus, an Armenian lord, and denied to the Roman knight Severus, whom she loved, who is then believed dead in the war against the Parthians. Meanwhile Polyeuctus converts to Christianity. But Severus returns, and Polyeuctus refuses to sacrifice in a pagan rite prepared for the triumphant returning soldier, thereby making himself liable to death. The neophyte, tempted to apostatize, withstands the trial and resigns himself to losing Pauline, who, spiritually fascinated by his Christian firmness, rather than yield herself to Severus, asks him to intercede for Polyeuctus. Severus generously agrees, but the intrigues of Felix, ambitious for imperial favor, oppose his magnanimous intention, and Polyeuctus serenely faces martyrdom.
There followed the tragedies La mort de Pompée (1643), Rodogune (1643), and Héraclius (1647), as well as the witty comedy Le menteur (1644). Nicomède (1651) and Pertharite (1652) mark the decline of C., who afterward, besides some late dramatic revivals of little interest, devoted himself to a verse version of the Imitation of Christ (1656) and of the Office of the Virgin (1620) and composed lyrics mostly on sacred subjects. He also wrote three Discours on the Aristotelian unities in the dramatic poem.
C.'s figure acquires historical importance for the decisive innovations he brought to the traditional forms of tragedy, both by separating it from intrusions of comic elements and by transferring its dramatic essence from the external fatality of conflicting events to the inner clash of passions and wills, in a free and conscious moral dialectic.
Composed in incisive and severe forms, Corneille's tragedies do not indulge in calligraphic complacencies, but all their elements converge tightly toward the resolving moment, in which the poet breathes most freely, revealing his delight in the heroic, his contempt for the fatuous and the banal; hence his admiration for the great men and political events of his time. Love is for the most part rejected by C., as an element disturbing serene determination, because it belongs to an instinctive world that escapes the dominion of reason. The essence of the Cornelian conception lies in the subjection of passion to judgment, by means of the will. The highest human motives (death, the vanity of things, honor and duty) and superhuman ones (faith, martyrdom) solemnly inform the tragedies of the "quadrilateral," culminating in the exquisite completeness of Polyeucte, where the stoic ethical quality of Horace and the classical equanimity of Cinna are revived and sublimated in the light of Christian spirituality.