"El Cid" by Pierre Corneille

This was an interesting piece of classical French Theatre. The editor/ translator of this particular play (Paul Landis)commented in the opening of the inverse attitudes of the English towards Corneille and the French towards Shakespeare. The French find Shakespeare a brutish playwright, while the English consider Corneille a stuck up sticky beak. That's my paraphrasing of Mr. Landis' commentary. Mr.

I do tend to agree with what Mr. Landis has said the English said about Mr. Corneille. In following the rigid rules of Aristotle's "Poetics", Mr. Corneille wrote plays that may have endeared themselves to his French contemporaries. The problem, at least for me, is the same issue I have with classic Greek tragedies. Nothing happens.

I mean, in "El Cid", there are a multitude of events that somehow manage to transpire in a single twenty-four hour period (one of the key tenets according to Aristotle). Roderick and Chimene are in love, the king approves of their marriage and their fathers are happy.

By some slight imagining of an insult, which I neglected to understand or catch, between Roderick's father and Chimene's father, and all of a sudden it necessitates a duel. The young Roderick, at the behest of his own father (more of an outright demand), and Chimene's father is killed. At which point Chimene, even though she declares her undying love for Roderick, she is honor bound to exact revenge for the murder of her father, and wants Roderick dead. But not really. But she does. Not. The moors now mount an offensive against the kingdom, a battle that is miraculously won by Roderick, endearing both king and country to the young man and making the king rather reluctant to order to death of his newest hero. Chimene persists and the king relents, and Roderick is sentenced to a new duel, the survivor of which will wed Chimene. Instead of fighting, Roderick convinces his dueling partner the futility of the fight, and so it ends on a happy note. Oh, except that the king, at the end of the play, tells Roderick to be happy to be engaged, but to take his time before being married, and that during the engagement period, Roderick should go conquer the Moors, Granada, and the rest of Spain.

A busy day.

I found it difficult to connect with the characters, though one wonders if that's the point. I feel Mr. Corneille was more interested in putting forth a portrayal of idealized characters who are able to withstand the rigors placed upon them by the notions and rules of honor. In fact, the whole notion of honor is a difficult concept to capture for a modern audience for whom "honor" is a relatively foreign concept.

To sum: by following the rules established by Aristotle's poetics, Mr. Corneille presented a neo-classical tragedy, that ended happily. It provides an interesting view of the French culture of the time, but I'm not sure it is a play I would propose to a contemporary audience.
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