Pierre Corneille (Rouen, June 6, 1606 - Paris, October 1, 1684) was a French playwright of the 17th century. His most famous plays are Le Cid, Cinna, Polyeucte and Horace. The richness and diversity of his work reflect the values and major questions of his time.
The eldest of the six children of a wealthy family of Rouen magistrates, Pierre Corneille began a career as a lawyer in 1628. In 1629, a love affair led him to write his first verses, then his first comedy, Mélite. With the plays that followed:Clitandre, the Widow, the Gallery of the Palace, the Next, the Place Royale, Médée and the Illusion comique, a new style of theater appeared in which tragic feelings were staged for the first time in a plausible universe, that of contemporary society.
does not travel to "keep [his] mind blank". In 1641, he married Marie Lampérière with whom he had 6 children.
Corneille, official author appointed by Richelieu, broke with this status of poet of the regime and with the disputed policy of the Cardinal, to write plays exalting the high nobility (Le Cid, a work now universally known), recalling that politicians are not above the law (Horace), or showing a monarch seeking to regain power other than through retaliation (Cinna).
In 1647 he was elected to the French Academy in chair 14, which his brother and accomplice Thomas would occupy after his death.
From 1643 to 1651, after the death of Richelieu, and during the period of the Fronde, the identity crisis that France was going through is reflected in the work of Corneille:he settles his accounts with Richelieu in the Death of Pompey, gives a tragedy of the civil war with Rodogune and develops the theme of the hidden king in Heraclius, Don Sancho and Andromeda, questioning the very nature of the king, subordinated to the vicissitudes of History, thus making him gain in humanity.
From 1650, his plays were less successful, and he stopped writing for several years after the failure of Pertharite. The rising star of French theater was then Jean Racine, whose plots relied more on sentiment and appeared less heroic and more human. The old poet does not resign himself and reconnects with the scene with the tragedy Oedipus.
Corneille continued to innovate in theater until the end of his life, putting on what he called a "machine play", that is to say favoring staging and "special effects" ( the Golden Fleece), and by trying his hand at musical theater (Agésilas, Psyché). It also addresses the theme of renunciation, through the incompatibility of the royal office with the right to happiness (Sertorius, Suréna). The comparison with Racine had turned to its disadvantage when the two authors had produced, almost simultaneously, on the same subject, Bérénice (Racine) and Tite et Bérénice (Corneille).
At the end of his life, Corneille's situation was such that Boileau asked for a royal pension for him, which he obtained from Louis XIV. Corneille died in Paris on October 1, 1684.
The extensive and rich work of Corneille gave birth to the adjective "cornélien", the meaning of which is particularly overused today since it designates both:
* will and heroism
* strength and literary density
* greatness of soul and integrity
* an irreducible opposition between two points of view.
Theater
* Melite (1629, first work)
* Clitandre or Persecuted Innocence (1631)
* The Widow (1632)
* The Palace Gallery (1633)
* The Next (1634)
* The Royal Square (1634)
* Medea (1635)
* The comic Illusion (1636)
* Le Cid (1636, now universally known)
* Horace (1640)
* Cinna or the Clemency of Augustus (1641)
* Polyeucte (1642)
* The Death of Pompey (1644)
* The Liar (1644)
* Rodogune (1644)
* Theodore (1646)
* Heraclius (1647)
* Andromeda (1650)
* Don Sancho of Aragon (1650)
* Nicomedes (1651)
* Pertharite (1652)
* Oedipus (1659)
* The Golden Fleece (1660)
* Sertorius (1662)
* Sophonisbe (1663)
* Otto (1664)
* Agesilaus (1666)
* Attila (1667)
* Titus and Berenice (1670)
* Psyche (1671)
* Pulcheria (1672)
* Surena (1674)