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Reviewed by:
  • Pierre Corneille
  • Michael Hawcroft
Pierre Corneille. By Alain Niderst. Paris, Fayard, 2006. 440 pp. Pb €24.00.

This book features in a series of literary biographies published by Fayard, all written by specialists, but with the general reader in mind. In these terms, Niderst's book is a success, clearly and elegantly presenting what is known of Pierre Corneille's activities as a dramatist, poet, courtier, father and brother. Those more familiar with his theatre than with the rest of his activities will find illumination in Niderst's chronologically contextualized accounts of his life-long contact with the Jesuits, his support for school drama and his engagement with neo-latin poets, especially Jean Santeuil, whom he frequently translated into French. It is of course his theatrical work that is best documented and that occupies the lion's share of the book. But Niderst's method makes the book less obviously useful to specialist readers, since it involves giving accurate summaries of Corneille's plays, his theoretical writings, and the plays and theoretical writings of those with whom Corneille not infrequently clashed. Nonetheless, the general reader and students will find helpful and succinct accounts of the querelle du Cid and of the increasingly personalized dispute with d'Aubignac in the years following the publication of the Pratique du théâtre, as well as of the tense relations between the veteran Corneille and the upstart Racine in the 1660s and 1670s. Niderst offers a vision of Corneille as a man loyal to his family, always trying to increase his income when the opportunity arises, loyal to the Church and his Jesuit instructors, and above all loyal to the succession of political patrons whom he served (Richelieu, Mazarin, Foucquet and Louis XIV) whether or not they managed to remain loyal to him. This view of the man inevitably inflects Niderst's view of the plays, as he considers the dramatist's sizeable output to be 'une immense tautologie' (p. 370), expressing 'une vertigineuse sagesse' (p. 367), and the substance of that wisdom is propaganda for a Christian monarchy: those in power are irresistibly powerful and nothing is be gained by trying to stand up to them. Very occasionally Niderst evokes specifically dramatic considerations when discussing the plays, but his overriding preoccupation is with Corneille the political propagandist. Some readers might find this too limiting a vision.

Michael Hawcroft
Keble College, Oxford
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