SOURCE: Knutsen, Harold C. “Corneille's Early Comedies: Variations in Comic Form.” In Corneille Comique: Nine Studies of Pierre Corneille's Comedy with an Introduction and a Bibliography, edited by Milorad R. Margitic, pp. 35-54. Paris: Papers on French Literature, 1982.

In the following essay, Knutsen views Corneille's early plays as “a series of variations in comic form.”

It is difficult to avoid seeing Corneille's early comedies in a teleological perspective, as early stages in the inevitable progress of the dramatist and his heroes towards greatness.¹ But a few critics, beginning with Rivaille,² have sought to examine these plays on their own terms, either as part of the comic tradition of the time³ or, more recently, as manifestations of the author's psychological make-up.⁴ My purpose in the following remarks is to scrutinize Corneille's early comedies as a series of variations in comic form. As his Prefaces, Discours and Examens indicate, Corneille...