Corneille as Self-Critic

Among the problems relating to our understanding of Comelian drama are the apparent inconsistencies within the author's comments on certain of his own plays. It is, of course, hardly surprising if Comeille's first piece of critical writing, the Preface to Clitandre, published in March 1632 when he was only twenty-five years old, should differ radically in style and content from the more considered study contained in the 1660 Examen. However, divergent interpretations are less easy to accept in respect of plays that come later in his career, and are better known or more enthusiastically received. A principal cause of such differences as exist are documents to which the dramatist felt he had to respond, such as those of the 'Querelle du Cid' or the abbe d' Aubignac's La Pratique du theatre (1657). The contradictory views of aspects of the 1637 tragi-comedy contained in its Examen and in the Discours, published simultaneously in 1660, lead me to ask whether we can calculate the sequence of events at that time and hence, perhaps, the author's definitive viewpoint.