ABSTRACT
The ideal of the deliberative will formed the real, living passion of this man devoid of passions; for no one that lives can withhold himself from passion: he is only able to change its object by passing from one to the other. The judgment that holds Pierre Corneille to be an intrinsically prosaic, ratiocinatory and casuistical genius is therefore to be looked upon as lacking of penetration. The enquiry as to the nature and degree and tone of that passion differs altogether from the fact of Corneille’s powerful passionality, as to which there can be no doubt. The problem, that is to say, is, whether passion, which is certainly a necessary condition for poetry, was so shaped and found in him such compensations and restraints as to yield itself with docility to poetry and to give it a fair field for expression.
