as Corneille's unhappy fate at the hands of nearly three
centuries of critics, French and English: the misleading
comparison with Racine. An inability to consider Corneille
on his own terms seems to beset nearly every critic who
studies him. I am not speaking of the fact that the critic
must take a stand, although one can hope that the stand
be based on more understanding than is the case in Martin
Turnell's summary interpretations of Corneille and
Racine in The Classical Moment ( 1948). Rather, I am
speaking of the long-standing teleological view of French
dramatic literature in which Corneille is a precursor --
albeit a refractory one -- of the high point of French
classical tragedy, Jean Racine. ^* A greater readiness to as-
sess Corneille on his own terms (quite literally) informs
E. B. O. Borgerhoff's study of Corneille in The Freedom
of French Classicism ( 1950), but even this critic's views of
Corneille as a skillful craftsman and magician, close as
they come to the essentials of Cornelian dramaturgy, tend
to reduce Corneille's stature.

Borgerhoff's essay apart, studies of Corneille in English
during the last quarter century have failed to keep pace
with their French counterparts in either depth or range.
In the very heyday of the Lansonian approach, Péguy was
laying the groundwork for a more dynamic interpretation
( Victor-Marie, comte Hugo, 1910; Note conjointe sur M.
Descartes, 1914). The circumstantial orientation of Lanson
and earlier academic critics has persisted in French criti-
cism, to be sure, but recent academicians have been more
probing and more sophisticated, less univocal in their pre-
occupations and preconceptions. Louis Rivaille (Les
Débuts de P. Corneille, 1936) and Georges Couton (La
Vieillesse de Corneille, 1949) have explored in depth sepa-

-14-