ABSTRACT
The poetry of Pierre Corneille, or what of poetry there is in him, is all to be found in the lyrical quality of the volitional situations, in those debates, remarks, solemn professions of faith, energetic assertions of the will, in that superb admiration for one’s own personal, unshakable firmness. And indeed everyone has always sought and seeks the flower of the spirit of Corneille, the beauty of his work, in single situations, or “places.” The commentators who busy themselves with the exposition and the degustation of his works have but slight material for analysis of the sort that is employed by them in the case of other poets, whose fundamental poetic motive furnishes a basis for the rethinking of the characters and of their actions. Corneille’s keenest adversaries have always been compelled to recognise in him a residuum, which withstood their destructive criticism.
