The Hero in Corneille's Early Comedies

Abstract

Immediately after his tragedy Pompée (1642–43), Corneille wrote Le Menteur (1643), a comedy. In the “Epître” of the latter play, Corneille tried to explain this curious sequence in genre and offered as one of his reasons: “Et d'ailleurs, étant obligé au genre comique de ma première réputation, je ne pouvois l'abandonner tout à fait sans quelque espèce d'ingratitude.” This argument simply recalled to his contemporaries that five, and in a sense all six, of the earliest plays by the author of the tragic masterpieces from Le Cid (1637) to Polyeucte (1641–42) were in the comic vein. Influenced by the incomprehension or hostility of the “classical” period, later generations were little aware of this first flowering of Corneille's dramatic genius.