Thomas Corneille was a French dramatist.

Personal life

Born in Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 nearly twenty years after his brother Pierre

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

, the "great Corneille", Thomas's skill as a poet seems to have shown itself early. At the age of fifteen he composed a play in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 which was performed by his fellow-pupils at the Jesuit Lycée Pierre Corneille

Lycée Pierre Corneille (Rouen)

The Lycée Pierre-Corneille is a school in Rouen, France. It was founded by the Archbishop of Rouen, Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon and run by the Jesuits to educate the children of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in accordance with the purest doctrinal principles of Roman Catholicism...

in Rouen. . His first play in the French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Les Engagements du hasard, was staged in 1647. Le Feint Astrologue, imitated from the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 of Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...

, and itself imitated in Dryden's

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

 An Evening's Love

An Evening's Love

An Evening's Love, or The Mock Astrologer is a comedy in prose by John Dryden. It was first performed before Charles II and Queen Catherine by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal on Bridges Street, London, on Friday, 12 June 1668...

, came the following year.

After his brother's death, Thomas succeeded his vacant chair in the Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

. He then turned his attention to philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

, producing a new edition of the Remarques of CF Vaugelas in 1687, and in 1694 a dictionary of technical terms, intended to supplement that of the Academy. A complete translation of Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

'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

Les Andelys

Les Andelys is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Geography:It lies on the Seine, about 35 km northeast of Évreux.The commune is divided into two parts, Grand-Andely and Petit-Andely.-Population:-Sights:...

 at the age of eighty-four.

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 who outshone him, as he would have outshone almost anyone else.
In 1761, Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

 wrote of Thomas Corneille: ‘si vous exceptez Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

, 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' (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

Rachel (actress)

Elisabeth "Eliza, or Élisa" Rachel Félix , better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel , was a French actress....

 attained success. 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

Camma

In Plutarch's On the Bravery of Women, Camma was a Galatian princess and priestess of Artemis. She was wedded to the tetrarch Sinatus, and became known and admired for her virtue and beauty. Sinatus' rival, another tetrarch named Sinorix, murdered Sinatus and proceeded to woo Camma herself...

(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

Jean Donneau de Visé

Jean Donneau de Visé was a French journalist, royal historian , playwright and publicist. He was founder of the literary, arts and society gazette "le Mercure galant" and was associated with the "Moderns" in the "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns".Donneau de Visé was among the detractors...

, founder of the Mercure galant (to which Thomas contributed), received over 6,000 livres

French livre

The livre was the currency of France until 1795. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of both units of account and coins.-Etymology:...

, the largest sum known to have been paid during that period. Lastly, one of his pieces (Le Baron des Fondrières) 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 pièce à machines and opera

French Opera

French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen...

 at the time. His machine play Circé

Circe

In Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...

was among the most successful of the century. His three opera librettoes, Psyché (1678), Bellérophon

Bellérophon

Bellérophon is an opera with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and a libretto by Thomas Corneille and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle first performed by the Opéra at the Palais Royal in Paris on 31 January 1679....

(1679) and Médée

Médée (Charpentier)

Médée is a tragédie mise en musique in five acts and a prologue by Marc-Antoine Charpentier to a French libretto by Thomas Corneille. It was premiered in Paris on December 4, 1693. Médée is the only opera Charpentier wrote for the Académie Royale de Musique...

(1693) make him, next to Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.- Biography :Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan l'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...

 and Jean Galbert de Campistron

Jean Galbert de Campistron

Jean Galbert de Campistron was a French dramatist-Biography:Campistron was born in Toulouse, France to a noble family.At the age of seventeen he was wounded in a duel and sent to Paris...

, one of the most important French librettists of the seventeenth century.

Further reading

• Thomas Corneille, sa vie rises ouvrages (1892), by G. Reynier.
• Thomas Corneille, sa vie et son theatre (1892). Reprint of the above, in 1970 by Slatkin. ASIN B000LV3EMO
• Fragments inédits de critique sur Pierre ci Thomas Corneille by Alfred de Vigny
  Alfred de Vigny
  Alfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family...
  
   with Emmanuel des Essarts, published in 1905. ASIN B001CB2CQ6

External links

• Thomas Corneille Bibliography from the 1911 version of Encyclopædia Britannica
• Biography, Bibliography, Analysis, Plot overview (in French)
• An article on Thomas Corneille on the French Studies website