Thomas Corneille
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Thomas Corneille (20 August 1625 – 8 December 1709) was a French
Biography
Born in
After his brother's death, Thomas succeeded his vacant chair in the
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 plays
- Les Engagements du hasard (1647)
- Le Feint astrologue (1648)
- Don Bertrand de Cigarral (1650)
- L'Amour à la mode (1651)
- Le Charme de la voix (1653)
- Les Illustres ennemis (1654)
- Le Geolier de soi-même (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 d’Achille (1673).
- Don César 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 libretto
- )
Place in French Literature
Thomas Corneille has often been regarded as one who, but for his surname, would merit no notice. Others feel he was unlucky in having a brother (Pierre Corneille) who outshone him, as he would have outshone almost anyone else. In 1761 Voltaire wrote of Thomas Corneille: ‘si vous exceptez Racine, auquel il ne faut comparer personne, il était le seul de son temps qui fût digne d’être le premier au-dessous de son frère' [8] (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
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
In a letter to her father, shortly before her execution, Charlotte Corday quotes Thomas Corneille: "Le Crime fait la honte, et non pas l’échafaud!" (The crime causes the shame, and not the scaffold!).
References
- Notes
- ^ Clarke 2007, pp. 8–11.
- ^ 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. 58–59.
- ^ 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 (1751–1772). Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1 ed.). Paris: Antoine-Claude Briasson; Michel-Antoine David l'aîné; André-François Le Breton; and Laurent Durand.
- ^ Voltaire, "Commentaires sur Corneille", in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, LIII-LV, ed. David Williams (Banbury, Voltaire Foundation, 1973–1975), LV, p. 979.
- Sources
- public domain: Saintsbury, George (1911). "Corneille, Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 167. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Clarke, Jan (2007). The Guénégaud Theatre in Paris (1673–1680). Volume Three: The Demise of the Machine Play. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 9780773453135.
External links
- Works by or 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 reading
- Collins, David A. (1966). Thomas Corneille: Protean Dramatist. The Hague: Mouton. OCLC 337242.
- Reynier, Gustave (1892). Thomas Corneille, sa vie et son théâtre. Paris: Hachette. Copies 1 and 2 at OCLC 1909565.
- Langlais, Jacques (1904). Notes inédites d'Alfred de Vigny sur Pierre et Thomas Corneille Paris: A. Colin. OCLC 38642210.