SOURCE: Goulbourne, Russell J. “Visual Effects and the Theatrical Illusion in Pierre Corneille's Early Plays.” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 25, no. 49 (1998): 531-44.

In the following essay, Goulbourne explores the visual aspects of Corneille's early plays.

“Il faut voir représenter Corneille pour en sentir tout l'effet.” With these words, Louis-Sébastien Mercier alerts the reader of his Nouvel essai sur l'art dramatique (1773) to Corneille's theatricality and particularly to his exploitation of the visual resources of the stage.¹ For a long time, however, Mercier's was a lone voice. Seventeenth-century French drama, especially serious drama, has often been seen primarily as verbal and lacking in visual interest. Commentators of Corneille have privileged ideas and psychology over theatrical pleasure.² In recent years some critics have begun to explore the importance of the visual in the serious plays of the period. A central book has been David Maskell's study of the...