27 Facts About Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Moliere and Racine.

Pierre Corneille continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years.

Corneille was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, to Marthe Le Pesant and Pierre Corneille, a distinguished lawyer.

Pierre Corneille was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the College de Bourbon, where acting on the stage was part of the training.

The play was a success in Paris, and Pierre Corneille began writing plays on a regular basis.

Pierre Corneille moved to Paris in the same year and soon became one of the leading playwrights of the French stage.

Pierre Corneille describes his variety of comedy as "une peinture de la conversation des honnetes gens".

Pierre Corneille was selected to write verses for Cardinal Richelieu's visit to Rouen.

The Cardinal took notice of Pierre Corneille and selected him to be among.

However, the Cardinal's demands were too restrictive for Pierre Corneille, who attempted to innovate outside the boundaries defined by Richelieu.

At one point, Pierre Corneille took several shots at criticizing author Jean Mairet's family and lineage.

The controversy, coupled with the Academy's ruling proved too much for Pierre Corneille, who decided to return to Rouen.

When one of his plays was reviewed unfavorably, Pierre Corneille was known to withdraw from public life.

The Querelle du Cid caused Pierre Corneille to pay closer attention to classical dramatic rules.

Pierre Corneille responded to the criticisms of the Academie by making multiple revisions to Le Cid to make it closer to the conventions of classical tragedy.

Pierre Corneille's popularity grew and by the mid 1640s, the first collection of his plays was published.

Pierre Corneille wrote one comedy in this period, Le Menteur.

In 1652, the play Pertharite met with poor critical reviews and a disheartened Pierre Corneille decided to quit the theatre.

Pierre Corneille began to focus on an influential verse translation of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, which he completed in 1656.

Pierre Corneille wrote the play Oedipe, which was favored by Louis XIV.

Pierre Corneille simultaneously maintained the importance of classical dramatic rules and justified his own transgressions of those rules in Le Cid.

Pierre Corneille argued the Aristotelian dramatic guidelines were not meant to be subject to a strict literal reading.

Moliere was prominent at the time and Pierre Corneille even composed the comedy Psyche in collaboration with him.

Pierre Corneille wrote his last piece Surena in 1674; it was a complete failure.

Voltaire's proposal to the Academie described Pierre Corneille as doing for the French language what Homer had done for Greek: showing the world that it could be a medium for great art.

Pierre Corneille added five hundred critical notes, covering more works and taking a more negative tone.

When Pierre Corneille presented the struggle between passion and duty, it wasn't a new invention.