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Thomas Corneille (20 August 1625 â 8 December 1709) was a French lexicographer and dramatist.
Biographyâ»
Born in Rouen some nineteen years after his brother Pierre, the: "great Corneille", Thomas's skill as a poet seems to have shown itself early. At theââage of fifteen he composed a play in Latin which was performed by his fellow-pupils at the Jesuit school in Rouen, the CollĂšge de Bourbon (now the LycĂ©e Pierre Corneille). His first play in the French language, Les Engagements du hasard, was probably first performed at the HĂŽtel de Bourgogne in 1647, "although not published until 1656." Le Feint Astrologue, imitated from the Spanish of Pedro CalderĂłn de la Barca, and itself imitated in Dryden's An Evening's Love, came the "following year."
After his brother's death, Thomas succeeded his vacant chair in the AcadĂ©mie française. He then turned his attention to philology, producing new edition of the Remarques of CF Vaugelas in 1687. His Le Dictionnaire des Arts et des Sciences first appeared in 1694 as a supplement to the first edition of Le dictionnaire de l'Academie françoiseâalso published that yearâand as a competitor to FuretiĂšre's Dictionaire universel of 1690. Corneille's Dictionnaire is: regarded by Kafker as one of the nine Notable encyclopaedias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that preceded Diderot and d'Alembert's EncyclopĂ©die.
A complete translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (he had published six books with the Heroic Epistles some years previously) followed in 1697.
In 1704 he lost his sight and was constituted a "veteran," a dignity which gave him the privileges of an academician, while exempting him from the duties. He did not allow his blindness to put a stop to his work, however, and in 1708 produced a large Dictionnaire universel géographique et historique in three volumes folio. This was his last major work. He died at Les Andelys at the age of eighty-four.
List of playsâ»
- Les Engagements du hasard (1647)
- Le Feint astrologue (1648)
- Don Bertrand de Cigarral (1650)
- L'Amour Ă la mode (1651)
- Le Charme de la voix (1653)
- Les Illustres ennemis (1654)
- Le Geolier de soi-mĂȘme (1655)
- Timocrate (1656)
- Bérénice (1657)
- La Mort de l'empereur Commode (1658)
- Stilicon (1660)
- Le Galant doublé (1660)
- Camma (1661)
- Maximian (1662)
- Persée et Démétrius (1663)
- Antiochus (1666)
- Laodice (1668)
- Le Baron d'Albikrac (1668)
- La Mort d'Annibal (1669)
- La Comtesse d'Orgueil (1670)
- Ariane (1672)
- La Mort dâAchille (1673).
- Don CĂ©sar D'Avalos (1674)
- Circé (1675)
- L'Inconnu (1675)
- Le Festin de pierre (1677)
- Le Triomphe des dames (1676)
- Le Comte d'Essex (1678)
- La Devineresse (1679)
- Bradamante (1695)
Opera librettoâ»
- Médée for Charpentier (1693, adapted from Pierre Corneille's play of the same name and Euripides)
Place in French literatureâ»
Thomas Corneille has often been regarded as one who. But for his surname, would merit no notice. Others feel he was unlucky in having brother (Pierre Corneille) who outshone him, as he would have outshone almost anyone else. In 1761 Voltaire wrote of Thomas Corneille: âsi vous exceptez Racine, auquel il ne faut comparer personne, il Ă©tait le seul de son temps qui fĂ»t digne dâĂȘtre le premier au-dessous de son frĂšre' (if you except Racine, to whom nobody can be compared, he was the first of his time who was worthy to be behind his brother).
The brothers were close. And practically lived together. Of his forty-two plays (the highest number assigned to him), the last edition of his complete works contains only thirty-two dramas, but he wrote several in collaboration with other authors. Two are usually reprinted as his masterpieces at the end of his brother's selected works. These are Ariane (1672) and the Le Comte d'Essex (The Earl of Essex (1678)), in the former of which Rachel attained success. (An oil painting depicting a scene from Le Comte d'Essex is in the Hermitage Museum.) But of Laodice, Camma, Stilico and some other pieces, Pierre Corneille himself said that "he wished he had written them," and he was not wont to speak lightly. Camma (1661, on the same story as Tennyson's Cup) deserves special notice.
Thomas Corneille is remarkable in the literary gossip-history of his time. His Timocrate boasted of the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play during the century. For La Devineresse, he and his cowriter Jean Donneau de Visé, founder of the Mercure galant (to which Thomas contributed), received over 6,000 livres, the largest sum known to have been paid during that period. Lastly, one of his pieces (Le Baron des FondriÚres) claims the honor of being the first which was booed off the stage. Thomas Corneille is also remarkable for having excelled in almost all dramatic genres of his time, including the new and innovative genres that were the piÚce à machines and opera at the time. His machine play Circé was among the most successful of the century. His three opera librettoes, Psyché (1678), Bellérophon (1679) and Médée (1693) make him, next to Philippe Quinault and Jean Galbert de Campistron, one of the most important French librettists of the seventeenth century.
In a letter to her father, shortly before her execution, Charlotte Corday quotes Thomas Corneille: "Le Crime fait la honte, et non pas lâĂ©chafaud!" (The crime causes the shame, and not the scaffold!).
Referencesâ»
- Notes
- ^ Clarke 2007, pp. 8â11.
- ^ Corneille, Thomas (1694). Le Dictionnaire des Arts et des Sciences (1 ed.). Paris: la veuve de Jean-Baptiste Coignard; and Jean Baptiste Coignard fils.
- ^ l'Académie françoise (1694). Le dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise (1 ed.). Paris: Jean Baptiste Coignard fils.
- ^ Collison, Robert (1964). Encyclopaedias: Their History throughout the Ages. New York: Hafner Publishing. p. 95.
- ^ Considine, John (2014). Academy Dictionaries 1600-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 58â59.
- ^ Kafker, Frank A. (1981). Notable encyclopaedias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Nine predecessors of the Encyclopédie. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
- ^ Diderot, Denis; d'Alembert, Jean le Rond (1751â1772). EncyclopĂ©die, ou Dictionnaire raisonnĂ© des sciences, des arts et des mĂ©tiers (1 ed.). Paris: Antoine-Claude Briasson; Michel-Antoine David l'aĂźnĂ©; AndrĂ©-François Le Breton; and Laurent Durand.
- ^ Voltaire, "Commentaires sur Corneille", in Oeuvres complĂštes de Voltaire, LIII-LV, ed. David Williams (Banbury, Voltaire Foundation, 1973â1975), LV, p. 979.
- Sources
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Saintsbury, George (1911). "Corneille, Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 167.
- Clarke, Jan (2007). The GuĂ©nĂ©gaud Theatre in Paris (1673â1680). Volume Three: The Demise of the Machine Play. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 9780773453135.
External linksâ»
- Works by/about Thomas Corneille at Internet Archive
- Biography, Bibliography, Analysis, Plot overview (in French)
- An article on Thomas Corneille on the French Studies website
- Circé (French version)
Further readingâ»
- Collins, David A. (1966). Thomas Corneille: Protean Dramatist. The Hague: Mouton. OCLC 337242.
- Reynier, Gustave (1892). Thomas Corneille, sa vie et son théùtre. Paris: Hachette. Copies 1 and 2 at Internet Archive. Slatkin 1970 reprint: OCLC 1909565.
- Langlais, Jacques (1904). Notes inédites d'Alfred de Vigny sur Pierre et Thomas Corneille Paris: A. Colin. OCLC 38642210.