Le Cid

Le Cid, five-act verse tragedy about the national hero of Spain by Pierre Corneille, performed and published in 1637. It is regarded as the first classical tragedy of French theatre and one of Corneille’s finest plays.

Initially issued as a tragicomedy, Le Cid proved an immense popular success. It sparked a literary controversy, however, and the Académie Française issued a judgment that admitted the play’s beauties but criticized it as dramatically implausible and morally defective. Cardinal de Richelieu used the judgment of the Académie as an excuse for suppressing public performances of the play. Corneille, indeed, had not observed the dramatic unities in Le Cid. He also rejected the discursive treatment of the subject given in his Spanish source, concentrating instead on a conflict between passionate love and family loyalty or honour, thus anticipating the so-called pure tragedy of Jean Racine.