SOURCE: "The Realism of Corneille (1) Characters," in Corneille, St Martin's Press, 1963, pp. 178-229.

In the following excerpt, Yarrow provides a close study of Corneille's characterization.

Epithets derived from names of writers sometimes suffer a strange fate. Some are merely used with the sense of 'like or pertaining to the writer in question', as 'Shakespearean'. Others, however, take on a different shade of meaning and imply, not 'like the writer', but 'like some popular misconception of the writer'. The word 'Machiavellian', for instance, has acquired undertones and overtones of meaning which make the reading of The Prince something of a surprise to the reader who expects it to be 'Machiavellian'. 'Cartesianism' is only a part of Descartes, as 'marivaudage' is only a part of Marivaux. In the same way, the adjective 'Cornelian' has acquired implications, based on an over-simple, if not erroneous, interpretation of Corneille, which make it difficult...