The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Corneille's Le Cid

Abstract

This article theorizes that it was an aesthetic motivation that prompted Corneille to leave Le Cid open-ended, despite his assertion in the 1660 examen that it was respect for the bienséances that obliged him to close the tragedy on such an uncertain note. While moral reservations may have played a role, surely an artist as committed to his craft as Corneille was motivated by some overriding aesthetic goal as well. In consequence, Chimène's defiance at the play's end must be viewed as an integral component of the tragedy and not just a reflection of the author's reluctance to violate dramaturgical precepts. I argue that by leaving the dénouement in doubt, Corneille draws deliberate attention to his aesthetic manipulation of the well-known historical/literary precedent. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, his aesthetic manipulation of history shields Chimène's heroism from the quotidian reality of degradation and devolution that are the defining traits of non-aesthetic realities.

Keywords:

• Baroque
• Corneille
• Le Cid
• metatextuality

Notes

1. Peter Nurse, in his edition of Le Cid, points out that Chimène's story is primarily a textual (as opposed to a historical) phenomenon (19).

2. Indeed, Corneille's contemporary critics cited his “plagiarism” of the original as one of its primary flaws.

3. Antoine Soare reviews the outlines of the debate and demonstrates how it continues to rage.

4. See also Soare 45.

5. Christopher Braider suggests that ambiguity is an integral part of dramatic representation: “The inability to make things fit is no spectacular lapsus or acte manqué; it is the burden of what it fundamentally rehearses on behalf of the audience in the space of collective representation that is the theater. What is more, the inability to close is conditioned and is expressly known to be conditioned by the form both of representation itself and of the consciousness with which it is confederate” (37).

6. Mitchell Greenberg argues that women, rather than men, are always at the heart of Cornelian tragedy.

7. See also Georges Forestier: “Car il estimait qu’au théâtre la captation des sens et de l’esprit des spectateurs repose moins sur une prétendue vraisemblance absolue créatrice d’un effet de vérité que sur la construction de belles histoires, qui doivent frapper l’imagination du spectateur par leur caractère inouï, toucher ses sentiments en suscitant les plus fortes émotions et bousculer son attente à l’aide de retournements ‘merveilleux’” (115).

8. Claire L. Carlin offers a thorough review of critical assessments of Chimène along with some interesting new perspectives.

9. It was, of course, Jean Starobinski's chapter on Corneille (L’Oeil Vivant 31–68), that brought the concept of Cornelian éblouissement to the forefront of critical attention.

10. Stephen Bold argues that the conflict between public and private values is the epicenter of the tragedy: “At the heart of the play's ideology is the archetypal problem of the hero as a unique, irreplaceable individual on the one hand, and as a congruent, compliant element of the larger collective, defined first by la race (the family tree) and then by that larger political family that is la nation, on the other” (165).

11. The Infante's resolve here is amplified further in a later edition (“Oui, oui, je m’en souviens, et j’épandrai mon sang/Plutôt que de rien faire indigne de mon rang” [594]).

12. Because the king, now functioning as Chimène's father, sanctions the marriage, Chimène's reservations are given license to disappear, according to Hélène Merlin-Kajman (64).

13. Helen L. Harrison offers some interesting insights on the subject of the king's “rewards” to his subjects.

14. Suzanne C. Toczyski also points out that Chimène's demand for vengeance in the wake of Rodrigue's victory over the Moors is dismissed as the “misguided energies of a woman in love” (508).

15. Toczyski's observation (511) that the king is actually yielding to the request of Don Diègue (who seconds Chimène's demand for the duel of honor) is particularly illuminating in that it demonstrates how little influence Chimène is able to inject into the unfolding of events.

16. “By contesting the happy ending, Chimène posits a bitter claim to awareness which resounds far beyond the hollow pomp and ceremony staged at the play's end,” writes Mohammed Kowsar (301).

17. Corneille makes Chimène's opposition even stronger in a later edition: “Sire, quelle apparence, à ce triste hyménée,/Qu’un même jour commence et finisse mon deuil,/Mette en mon lit Rodrigue et mon père au cercueil./C’est trop d’intelligence avec son homicide,/Vers ses mânes sacrés c’est me rendre perfide/Et souiller mon honneur d’un reproche éternel” (652).

18. Corneille's oft-cited line from the examen confirms that her silence is to be interpreted as opposition: “Je sais bien que le silence passe d’ordinaire pour une marque de consentement; mais quand les rois parlent, c’en est une de contradiction” (583).

19. Notes Toczyski: “Chimène's ostensible capitulation is thus redeemed by Corneille's willingness to interject a note of indeterminacy into what would otherwise be a resounding victory for the masculine status quo of eleventh-century Spain” (522).

20. Bold argues that the contrast between discourse and action points to the broader question of how value is defined in a feudal society. He maintains that in Le Cid, feudal heroism obliges Rodrigue to always move beyond discursive representations: “However cruel the lesson may be, Le Cid demonstrates a fundamental truth of aristocratic society: though represented through the discourse of family history, it exists only by exceeding that discourse, forgetting it in a sense by laws assuring the passage to the next generation through action” (165).

21. David Clarke alludes to a potential aesthetic motivation on Corneille's part as well: “Subsequent news of Rodrigue's victory over Don Sanche should speedily have brought matters to a happier ending, but Chimène still pursues her love in a manner which shows that, by the closing scenes of the play, the future author of Horace and Cinna has become less intent on bringing about a comfortable resolution to his tragicomedy than on pushing to the bitter end the tragic illustration of a moral impasse” (161).

22. Michel Jeanneret points out that Corneille always chose the extraordinary over verisimilitude (16–17). He argues further that an art of conformity fails as art (17), and that only the representation of excess can truly inspire (22): “L’excès séduit, exalte, offre le mirage d’une forme supérieure de l’existence” (22).

23. Madeleine Bertaud suggests that because Chimène's isolation is a “solitude à deux,” it is less isolating (545).