Rethinking the Birth of French Tragedy

Pierre Corneille, after having written four master pieces of French classical tragedy within a seven year period, was unable in thirty additional years of writing even to approach the standard which he himself had set, in spite of the fact that there occured at no time any significant deterioration in his poetic ability. An explanation of this phenomenon can be found in an examination of the evolution of dramatic procedure in the Cornelian masterpieces and in those tragedies which follow ed them. In the four masterpieces, Le Cid, Horace, Cinna, and Polyeucte, Corneille's successful dramatic formula consists of a relatively simple plot constructed around two central themes: a political question to be solved, which leads to a physical conflict between opposing forces; and a moral issue which results from the political problem and engenders a mental conflict. While the political issue is frequently dated in interest and no longer of importance, the inner struggle is a human characteristic which gives universal appeal to the plays and to the characters. During the second stage in the evolution of Cornelian tragedy, beginning with Pompee(1643) and ending with Pertharite (1651), several major changes in dramatic procedure are noted: the moral issue is almost nonexistent, having been replaced by political concerns and ideals, and with its disappearance comes the elimination of the element of inner conflict, resulting in subjects which are wholly political and plays consisting of physical conflicts be tween opposing forces of different political beliefs. Certain romanesque and melodramatic elements are intro duced which prove detrimental to the creation of the highly restrictive classical tragedy; extremely complex and complicated plots replace the relatively simple ones of the masterpieces and result in poor or incomplete development of the principal characters and loss of spec tator interest. Likewise the will of the Cornelian hero, which in the past was in some cases almost superhuman but which always inspired its possessor actively to seek his goal, becomes so rigid and inflexible that it inspires not activity but passiveness in the protagonist and re sults in insensitive, immobile characters solving cold, uninspiring political problems. In the third period, which dates from 1659(Oedipe) to 1667(Attila) , we note only one major change from the tragedies of the previous period. The one essential dif ference is that Corneille depicts a new kind of love, based on political expediency and couched in gallant vocabulary, with its sole object a marriage leading to political advancement. It is clearly a love designed to suit the vogue for preciosite and gallantry prominent at the time, and while most of the tragedies produced during this period enjoyed a measure of success, their popularity ended with the death of preciosite. During the final stage, which includes Tite et Bere nice (1670), Pulcherie(1672), and Surena(1674), we note several major changes within the framework of Cornelian drama. These plays, like the earlier masterpieces, are psychological in nature and relatively simple in plot, with a minimum of emphasis on political ideas and maxi mum focus on character reaction. The Cornelian heroic, gallant, and political loves of the past are replaced by strong emotional love; and the element of inner conflict once again assumes a vital role. However, in this case it results solely from the passions of love, anger, and jeal ousy. These changes, made after the presentation of Racine's Andromaque, are considered too drastic and too similar to be coincidental and have caused Corneille's last three plays, although very excellent Cornelian trage dies, to be classified by most critics as imitations of Racinean tragedy. vi CHAPTER I From Le Cid to Polyeucte: 1636-1643 By the time he had reached his thirtieth year, Pierre Corneille was ranked among the leading dramatists of his time, and had to his credit six comedies, one tragi-comedy, and one tragedy. Yet in all this work there was nothing to suggest the real genius which was "on the point of burst ing into full flower,*1 and which did so in December, 1636 2 or early in January, 1637, with the introduction of Ije Cid. However important his plays which preceded Le Cid may have appeared to Corneille and to his contemporaries, they have since fallen into the category of his inferior works. But Le Cid opened a new epoch in the history of French drama, for with the innovation of the emphasis on mental conflict, "it pioneered the tragedy of inner con flict and sealed the fate of the tragedy of mere mis-3 fortune." It is essentially the dramatization of dual Lockert, op. cit., p. 29. 2 H.C. Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Litera ture in the Seventeenth "Century, Part V, Recapitulation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 174277 P^ 39. Critics prior to Lancaster generally accept December, 1636 as the correct date of Le Cid. The latter, however, after exten sive research, concludes that January, 1637 is the prob able date of its first presentation. K 9 Diegue, and is likewise sustained, first by Rodrigue, then by Chimene, throughout the play. Rodrigue is the first to experience it. After his father explains the insult he has suffered and says , r Va, Cours, Vole, et nous venge, Rodrigue realizes his predicament: 8 I bid., p. 715. 9 Ibid., p. 715. 1 0 Ibid., p. 717. 9 Que je sens de rudes combats! Contre mon propre honneur mon amour s'interesse: II faut venger un pere et perdre une maltresse. L'un m'anlme le coeur, 1 *autre retient mon bras. Reduit au triste choix ou de trahir ma flamme, Ou de vivre en inf&me, Des deux c0tes mon mal est infini. 0 Dieu! l'etrange peine! Faut-il laisser un^affront impuni? Faut-il punir le pere de Chimene? He sees that he must choose between family honor and love for Chimene; between betraying his love or living en infSme, and that, in either case, he will lose Chimene because "l'un me rend infidele, et l'autre indigne d 'elle."^^ hj. s initial solution, then, is: Allons, mon fime; et puisqu'il faut mourir, Mourons, du moins, sans offenser Chimene. Immediately after this decision is reached, however, Rodrigue realizes that he cannot die and leave his name as well as that of his father in disgrace. And so, by calling upon all his powers of reason, he reaches a deci sion in favor of his honor and duty: Allons,. mcfn bras, sauvons du moins 1'honneur, Puisque apres tout il faut perdre Chimene. This victory of the will over the emotions is not an easy one for Rodrigue, and it is attained only by a careful analysis of right and wrong. Once he realizes, however, 1 1 Ibid., p. 718. 1 2 Ibid., p. 718. 1 3 Ibid., p. 718. 1 4 Ibid., p. 718. 10 that duty must come before inclination, he does not waver. True, he does express sorrow and regret after the duel with Don Gomes, but this sorrow is only for what he has done to Chimene, and not for what he has done to Don Gomes. It is only natural and human that he should regret hurting his loved one. Chimene*s plight is basically the same as that of Rodrigue, with the exception, of course, that with her it is love that triumphs. As has been previously pointed out, she feels, at the beginning of the play, that her happiness is too complete to run smoothly, and only too soon her feel ings are justified. Her initial conflict, when she learns of her father's actions and their effect on Rodrigue, is simply an amplification of that of Rodrigue, for she too realizes that she is unable to prevent the duel. She knows that her intervention could probably prevent the clash, Just as Rodrigue could have avoided it by taking his own life or by fleeing, but she also realizes that should she Stop Rodrigue, she would cause him to lose his honor and thus she would lose him. And so her sense of honor prevents her intervention. She does, however, indicate the strength of her love for Rodrigue, for when the Infante proposes:. Mais si jusques au jour de 1 *accommodement Je fais mon prisonnier de ce parfait amant, Et que j'emp^che ainsi l'effet de son courage,-^g Ton esprit amoureux n 'aura-t-il point d 'ombrage? 15 Ibid., p. 727.

English Literary Renaissance, 1985

2016

This chapter surveys the reception of Senecan tragedy in sixteenth-century England, particularly in the 1560s. The chapter addresses traditions of transmission and translation, the place of Seneca in mid-sixteenth century literary culture, approaches to translation and adaptation, critical reception, and the influence of the mid-sixteenth century translations on later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dramatists.

Renaissance Studies, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction by Elizabeth Sandis and Sarah Knight Christ's Passion, Christian tragedy and Ioannes Franciscus Quintianus Stoa's untimely Theoandrothanatos Dramatic texts in the Tudor curriculum: John Palsgrave and the Henrician educational reforms Religion and Latin drama in the early modern Low Countries A woman saint in the Parisian colleges: Claude Roillet's Catharinae Tragoedia (1556) Performing Exile: John Foxe's Christus Triumphans at Magdalen College, Oxford Drama in the margins – academic text and political context in Matthew Gwinne's Nero: Nova Tragædia (1603) and Ben Jonson's Sejanus (1603/5) Byzantine tragedy in Restoration England: Joseph Simons's Zeno and Sir William Killigrew's The Imperial Tragedy This collection of articles originates from a conference entitled ‘Theatrum Mundi: Latin Drama in Renaissance Europe’, held at Magdalen College and St John's College, Oxford on 13–14 September 2013, organized by Sarah Knight and Elizabeth Sandis under the aegis of the Society for Neo-Latin Studies and the Oxford Centre for Early Modern Studies, generously funded by the Modern Humanities Research Association, the Society for Renaissance Studies, and the Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections.

There is no doubt that the rise of the Greek drama, as evident in the classical writings of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had left a predominant impact on the Elizabethan writings of comedies. However, it was the tragedies that stood supreme. Yet, their appeal to the mass Elizabethan audience for their brutal images displayed on stage would not have been emotionally captivating had it not been for the Roman classic works of Ennuis and Seneca which paved the way for an era ever destined for genius minds in the theatrical world. Imitated by the Italian and French literary works, the Senecan tragedies, in particular, had indeed inspired the Elizabethan theatre, for they were widely modeled by some great Elizabethan dramatists. Hence, this paper is an attempt to revisit the historical writings of Seneca and observe his artistic vision of staging tragedies as adapted and projected in Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy.

Ramus

Did Sophocles or Seneca exercise a greater influence on Renaissance drama? While the twenty-first century public might assume the Greek dramatist, in recent decades literary scholars have come to appreciate that the model of tragedy for the Renaissance was the plays of the Roman Seneca rather than those of the Athenian tragedians. In his important essay on Seneca and Shakespeare written in 1932, T.S. Eliot wrote that Senecan sensibility was ‘the most completely absorbed and transmogrified, because it was already the most diffused’ in Shakespeare's world. Tony Boyle, one of the leading rehabilitators of Seneca in recent years, has rightly said, building on the work of Robert Miola and Gordon Braden in particular, that ‘Seneca encodes Renaissance theatre’ from the time that Albertino Mussato wrote his neo-Latin tragedy Ecerinis in 1315 on into the seventeenth century. The present essay offers a complement and supplement to previous scholarship arguing that Seneca enjoyed a status ...

Journal of the History of Ideas, 2011

As literary history stages a comeback as a method in contemporary literary study, it makes sense to ask about its antecedents. In the Renaissance, as it turns out, literary history was widely pursued alongside interpretive commentary and textual criticism. Perhaps the thorniest question Renaissance scholars faced in this field, as well as the most resonant for 21st-century readers, centered on the birth of tragedy in ancient Greece. What had been the tragedy's original form, and in particular, had it included music in any way? To attempt to answer was to engage with Aristotle's 'Poetics' in a very unfamiliar way, and moreover to compare Greek with Roman sources imaginatively and boldly. Angelo Poliziano, Francesco Robortello, Pier Vettori, and Francesco Patrizi da Cherso are discussed.

The Interiors, 2020

Tragedy is the least noticed and talked about in contemporary literature. Tragedy was born as a genre when Aristotle constructed the theoretical premises upon which Tragedy is based. Perhaps, as argued by some, the rise of novel marked the death of tragedy. However, it is found that tragedy did not die rather was re-born (Steiner, 45; Brockmann, 23) to suit the modern life. The paper traces the growth of the poetics of Tragedy from Plato to the contemporary period, and postulates that from Renaissance to the present day, the literature in English has shifted piecemeal and ultimately revolted against Aristotle's definition of tragedy.

Horizonte, 2017

We are accustomed to think that tragedy should end unhappily. We generally use the word «tragic» to describe an event that unexpectedly ends in sorrow and misery. The sad ending seems to be a rule of the tragic genre, or at least a part of its definition. However, many of the ancient tragedies we are still able to read have a happy ending and theorists proved that probably many of the tragedies that are now lost used to have a happy ending. 1Therefore, the idea that tragedy must end unhappily is relatively recent. I would like to analyse the origins of this idea and to reassess if early modern poetical treatises and commentaries of Aristotle’s Poetics also share this definition of the tragic ending. I will focus mainly on Italian theory of tragedy, but also briefly consider French and Spanish early modern theorisations of the genre. I hope thus to contribute to a better understanding of the reception of Aristotelian Poetics in early modern theory of tragedy.

There is no doubt that the rise of the Greek drama, as evident in the classical writings of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had left a predominant impact on the Elizabethan writings of comedies. However, it was the tragedies that stood supreme. Yet, their appeal to the mass Elizabethan audience for their brutal images displayed on stage would not have been emotionally captivating had it not been for the Roman classic works of Ennuis and Seneca which paved the way for an era ever destined for genius minds in the theatrical world. Imitated by the Italian and French literary works, the Senecan tragedies, in particular, had indeed inspired the Elizabethan theatre, for they were widely modeled by some great Elizabethan dramatists. Hence, this paper is an attempt to revisit the historical writings of Seneca and observe his artistic vision of staging tragedies as adapted and projected in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.