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SOURCE: "The Great and Good Corneille," in The Classical Moment: Studies of Corneille, Molière and Racine, 1948. Reprint by Greenwood Press, 1971, pp. 18-43.
Turnell has written widely on French literature and has made significant translations of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Guy de Maupassant, Blaise Pascal, and Paul Valèry. In the following essay, originally published in 1938 in Scrutiny, he presents a broad overview of the principal themes, characters, and verse style of Corneille's dramas, comparing them to their counterparts in the works of Racine.
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It is Corneille's misfortune that no English writer has done for him what Lytton Strachey did for Racine. Whatever the short-comings of Strachey's criticism, it did much to dispose of academic prejudice and to present Racine as a poet. It is true that Corneille has never aroused the same antipathy as Racine once did and that he has his place among the immortals...
This section contains 8,683 words (approx. 29 pages at 300 words per page) |
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