Table of Contents

1606: Birth of Pierre Croneille, in Rouen, June 6

1622: Finishes studies at the Jesuit college of Rouen

1624: Receives law degree

1625-29: His first play, Mélite, a comedy, staged in Paris

1632: Clitandre, tragicomedy

1633-34: Three comedies, La Veuve, La Galerie du Palais, and La Suivante. Médée, a tradegy

1636: L’Illusion comique, comedy, and Le Cid, tragicomedy, based on the play by Guillen de Castro, Las Mocedades del Cid. Richelieu grants him an annual pension of 1,500 livres

1637-38: “Quarrel of the Cid,” various critics and the Academy itself publish criticisms, to which the author replies

1640: Horace and Cinna, tragedies. Marriage to Marie de Lampérière

1641-43: Polyeucte, tragedy

1642-43: La Mort de Pompée, tragedy; le Menteur, comedy; la Suite du Menteur, comedy

1644: Rodogune, tragedy

1645: Théodore, vierge et martyre, tragedy

1647: Héraclius, tragedy

1650: Andromède, tragedy “with machines” (the use of stage machinery for spectacular effects, as in opera), Don Sanche d’Aragon, heroic comedy

1651: Nocomède, tragedy

1652: Pertharite tragedy whichfails. Corneille gives up writing drama for seven years

1659: Returns to the theatre with Œdipe, tragedy

1661: La Toison d’Or, tragedy with machines

1662: Sertorius, tragedy

1663: Sophonisbe, tragedy

1664: Othon, tragedy

1666: Agésilas, tragedy

1667: Attila, tragedy

1670: Tite et Bérénice, heroic comedy

1671: Psyché, tragic ballet, in collaboration with Molière, Quinault, and Lully

1672: Pulchérie, heroic comedy

1684: Death of Corneille on October 1st

About the Author

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. John C. Lapp is the author of Le Cid, published by Wiley.