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.

1

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...