PIERRE CORNEILLE (1606 - 1684)

He was a French tragedian, highly acclaimed as the 'Father of French Tragedy' and generally considered to be one of the three great French dramatists, along with Moliere and Racine.

He was writing in the era when the survival and success of a literary work depended upon royal patronage or an approval of the agency like 'Academie Francoise' which was established in France to supervise in general the cultural activity and monitor in this case the production of literary works. The approval to any literary work was granted in view of the work's strict adherence to 'Classical Unities' or 'Aristotelian Unities' or 'Three Unities' the violation of which, or any one out of these, used to bring the writer and work a disrepute. This was the era of Neoclassical writers who not only subordinated but also suspended any literary innovation as transgression of Classical rules of dramaturgy.

Pierre Corneille's 'Le Cid' (1636) was denounced by several authorities for the reasons mentioned below:

#1) It went against the popular practice of dramatic work by disregarding the strict adherence of the Classical Unities

#2) It's subtitle 'tragicomedy' seemed to b flouting the rule of not mixing tragedy with comedy. The play, in spite of being a tragedy, ends on a happy note

Due to the intentional defiance of the author from the Classical norms of dramatic practice - violation of Three Unities and Classical tragedy/comedy distinction, the play was ridiculed and the playwright, repudiated. The accusation of immorality was levelled at the playwright and the success of the play was sidelined as defective success.

In this context, Pierre Corneille felt the urgent need to re-interpret the Aristotelian Unities in defence of the play 'Le Cid'. Despite the high regard for Aristotelian guidelines on dramatic compositions, he asked for liberties in order not to let those rules stifle his individual talent and literary innovations.

Now, in order to understand the new life Corneille breathed in the understanding and observance of the Classical instructions regarding dramatic structure, we first of all need to scrutinize what Aristotle exactly said, left unsaid or said poorly about it in his 'Poetics'. The next post will b a review of those Classical Unities - Unity of Action, Unity of Time and Unity of Place...>