Horace (1640) set* the love of man and woman against the love of race and fatherland in four fold treatment of a single theme. In Cinna pas sion twists love of fatherland to its purpose, and is opposed at once to the magnanimity and the patriotism of Augustus. Polyeitete (1642) op poses Christian to marital duty in a story of Christian martyrdom, which was a bold venture, for many thought with Boileau that the mys teries of the faith should be kept out of litera ture. These three, with Lc Cid. mark the height of Co•neille's achievement, save that he touches for a moment a greater intensity of terror in Roc/npune (1645). The other tragedies are more or less pale imitations of the merits of these. ..1mong them it is worth while to name La mart de Pomuee (1643) ; Theodore (1646), an even more dubious venture in Christian martyrology than Polycucle had been; lleraelius (1647). fol lowed by Co•neille's election to the Acad emy; Nicon/Mc (1651) ; Perthurite (1652). The last was an unmistakable failure which led Corneille for a time to withdraw al together from the stage. During these years he had written also two comedies on Spanish models, Le mcnteur and Suite du menteur ( 1644-4.5) , and a good tragi-comedy, Don Sanehe d'Aragon (1650), Avhich, as the name implies, was Spanish also.
For seven years, from 1852 to 1859, Corneille lived at Rouen and turned his talent to veri fying Thomas it Kempis's imitation of Christ (1656), and to the writing of very frank critical essays on his own plays and the drama in gen eral. He was recalled from this by a visit of Moliere's company to Rouen in 165S, and be tween 1359 and 1674 wrote eleven tragedies of unequal mediocrity, though in each of them there were verses "with peeks in thunder clothed and long resounding pace." such as be alone has known the art to create. The time to regret had passed, the time to cry halt had come when Boileau wrote his famous epigram, dpres Age situs hens (1666) ; Ma is apres Attila hold (1667). A new conception of dramatic- art had been introduced by Boileau and Racine, and when Corneille was beguiled into a contest for Court favor he was fated to see his young BCrepice preferred to his Tite ct Bjrenice (1670). Other plays of this period are: Wdipe (1659) ; La toison d'or (1660) ; Sertorins (1(362) ; So phonisbe (1663), after which he received an ir regularly paid pension of 2000 livres; Othon ( ) : Psyche ( 1671 ) . in collaboration with Moliere and Quinault ; Pulcherie (1672): and Surena (1674). He had written some devotional poetry between 1665 and 1670. and among his last compositions were some beautiful verses of thanks addressed to King Louis XIV. in 1676. Corneille's last years were passed in pecuniary straits, "satiated with glory and hungry for money." as he said, and when, at the urgent request of Boileau, the King sent him 200 pis toles, it was already too late. He had no time to spend them. and two days after be was dead (October 1, 16S4).
Corneille's works show him as his friends describe and as his portraits paint him, a man of serious. rugged. and almost stern temper.
Whether from pride or shyness, he never curried favor, nor took his place with courtiers at a time when this was almost neees-sary to literary pros perity. His public manners were not gracious, though he was an affectionate husband and brother. His best work never lost popular favor, and the most eminent of his literary content po•arie. always did him justice. The greatest of them, Moliere, spoke of him as his master, and Racine pronounced at the Academy a eulogy on his rival at once just and generous, that later critics have in the main confirmed.
The first impression made by an attentive rending of Co•neille's work is its remarkable unevenness. Judged hy his best he ranks with the greatest. No dramatic poet rises to grander heights, hut many a lesser talent may attain a higher average. Hence no poet is more quotable and few- more quoted, for he has hun dreds of lines that cling to the memory by their crash of sound and startling fullness of sug gestion, "the most beautiful," says the French critic Faguet, "that ever fell from a French pen." And the sathe critic says of Corneille's language that it is "the most masculine, ener getic, at once sober and full, that was ever spoken in France." Corneille's tragedies arouse admiration rather than tragic fear. His interest is not in the fate of his characters, but in the unconquerable mind with whieh they meet it, their haughty disdain of destiny. He is of the school of the emphaties, delighting in extraordinary situations and sub jects, in whatever will challenge the will to its utmost utterance. There is no fine-spun senti ment even_ in the love of Lc Cid. But with the limitations of the `tmities' involves much talk and little action, and Corneille's dis dain of the endless subject of talk allows the interest to flag for scenes and even acts. There is monotohy even in his nobility, and that in spite of the lyric and epic elements which he found in the drama and from which Racine was to free it. Yet his declamations, the tirades of Camilla, Augustus, Cornelia, and many another, are supreme in their kind and will thrill audi onees everywhere as long as the antinomies of love and patriotism, honor and duty, perplex men's souls.
The best edition of Corneille is Marty Laveaux's (12 vols., 1862-68). For early bibli ography, see Picot's Bibliographic Cornelienne (1865). The best translated biography is Guizot's Corneille and His Times (1%57) ; the best modern study, Faguet's "Corneille" (Paris, 1886), in the series Classiques Populaires. Lc Cid, Horace, and Polycuctc have been done into English blank verse by Nokes, and (with Chm) into English prose by Mongan and McRae (1878 S6). Consult: Sainte-Beuve, You reaux lntrdis, vol. vii. (Paris, 1863-72) ; •Levallois, Corneille ilIC0111121 (Paris, 1876) ; Guizot, Corneille et son temps (7th ed., Paris, 1880) ; Lemaitre, Cor neille et la poetique d'Aristote (Paris, 1888) ; Bouquet, Points obscurs et noureaux dc la vie de Corneille (Paris, 1888) ; Lieby, Corneille (Paris. 1892) ; Brunetiere, Epoqucs du theatre francais (Paris, 1892).