Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian, generally considered one of the three great French dramatists of the seventeenth century, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man he earned the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy. He was born in 1606 and died in 1684, and his plays helped set the standards of French classical theatre. He began by writing comedy along formal lines but later quarrelled with Richelieu, especially over his best-known play, Le Cid, about the medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed Academie francaise for breaching the unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years.