The comic Illusion

the comic Illusion is a Play in five acts written by Pierre Corneille in 1635, created with the Hôtel of Burgundy in 1636 and published in 1639.

When Corneille writes this part, it is 29 years old and already wrote seven other plays of which Tragédie S and Comédie S. the comic Illusion mark a turning in the literary career of its author since after having written it, Corneille will write nothing any more but tragedies. This part can then appear as the result of a training in which the author lets burst his literary virtuosity. If it is not moved of speaking about “virtuosity”, it is that Corneille condenses in this part all the theatrical kinds: “The first act is only one prolog” which takes as a starting point the pastoral one. “The three following makes an imperfect comedy” with its character of joke, Matamore. This “imperfect comedy” evolves to a tragi-comedy with these episodes of competition, imprisonment and death. “The last is a tragedy, and all that bent unit makes a comedy”. the comic Illusion thus summarizes all the theatrical universe; through this part Corneille shows that it controls all the theatrical kinds.

Summary

Act I . The first act starts at the entry of a cave which resembles a cave where two characters present themselves: Pridamant, a father éploré by the disappearance of his/her son (Clindor) and Gilding to whom it explains the possible causes of this disappearance. Gilding wants to introduce a magician to him that it knows able to help it (sc.1). This magician, Alcandre, immediately guess the reasons of the arrival of Pridamant and announces to him that it will be able to show to him his son thanks to an artifice. Before that, he asks Gilding to leave (sc.2). Gilding party, Alcandre starts by telling in Pridamant which his/her son lived a life of Picaro since his departure and which it put at the service of a “brave man” in the area of Bordeaux (sc.3).
Act II . At the beginning of the 2nd act, Alcandre and Pridamant look at the artifice of the magician thanks to which they can see the “two vain phantoms” which represent Clindor and its Master Matamore (sc.1). Clindor listens with Matamore kindness to praise improbable exploits while waiting for the arrival of Isabelle who appears accompanied by her official applicant. Matamore is concealed on their arrival (sc.2). Adraste is gotten rid of by Isabelle but that does not prevent it from leaving to go to require its hand of his/her father (sc.3). After its departure, Matamore and Clindor are shown and the Master benefits from it to again put forward his prowesses when a page comes to seek it so that it will deal with the alleged businesses in love which has a presentiment of it (sc.4). Only with Clindor, Isabelle reaffirms her love to him before fleeing with the return of Adraste (sc.5). The applicant suspects the competition of Clindor and warns but this one answers him with pride and nobility (sc.6). Lyse, the maidservant of Isabelle, proposes in Adraste to help it to surprise the two lovers (sc.7). Only, Lyse is delighted to be able to make pay in Clindor its preference for Isabelle (sc.8). The two “spectators” that are Alcandre and Pridamant only find on scene and the magician tries to reassure the father of Clindor on what awaits his/her son (sc.9).
Act III . Act III begins on the reproaches from Géronte to his/her daughter who refuses Adraste for husband (sc.1). Only, Géronte is convinced that he will arrive to his ends with his daughter (sc.2). Then it puts outside Matamore come fanfaronner in front of him (sc.3). By far, Matamore threatens the old man then it is let go to its bad faith, changing into honor what is cowardice (cowardice; cowardice), before fleeing while believing to hear the servants of Géronte (sc.4). But it is Lyse which appears and Clindor makes him the court by claiming that he prefers Isabelle to him only for his fortune (sc.5). Only lyse, remained, hesitates then lets itself go to its hatred (sc.6). Matamore returns alone in scene, trembling of fear. It hides when Isabelle and Clindor (sc.7) arrive. Dialog in love which makes leave Matamore its hiding-place (sc.8). Clindor takes the ascending one on its Master and obtains that it “yields” Isabelle (sc.9) to him. Isabelle and Clindor thank Matamore (sc.10). They want to be embraced when Adraste occurs with Géronte and its servants. Matamore flees, Clindor touches Adraste but must yield (sc.11). Again, there remains only Pridamant and Alcandre on scene. The father believes his dead son but Alcandre reassures it (sc.12).
Act IV . Act IV opens on the tragic monolog of Isabelle: Adraste died, Clindor is wounded and he is condemned to death. Isabelle swears not to survive to him (sc.1). She is joined by Lyse which after being itself made fun of her ends up reassuring it: Isabelle and Clindor will be able to flee the evening even with Lyse and the geôlier whom it allured. Isabelle will prepare her businesses (sc.2). Lysis expresses its regrets, it did not want any enough in Clindor to want its death (sc.3). Isabelle falls on Matamore which had hidden for several days. She and Lysis make fun of him then they make it flee by threatening it of the servants (sc.4). They joke on this subject (sc.5). The geôlier is able to inform them that all is ready (sc.6). Monolog of Clindor in prison. He seeks to flee the idea of his nearest death while thinking of Isabelle (sc.7). After the geôlier, Lyse and Isabelle return in her cell and release it. They flee all the four (sc.8 and 9). Alcandre again reassures Pridamant and the “high fortune announces to him” which awaits his/her son and his companions (sc.10).
Act V . Alcandre requires of Pridamant to remain with the variation, in spite of its dazzling, when the young heroes arrive, completely metamorphosed (sc.1). The night, in the garden of a palate, Isabelle appears in clothes of princess, and tells in Lyse that her “perfidious husband” has appointment with the princess Rosine (sc.2). Clindor arrives, takes Isabelle for Rosine and its love declares inadvertently to him. His wife is caught some then with him and reproaches him its inaccuracies whereas it very left to follow it. Clindor reaffirms its love to him by making with the passage the praise of the inaccuracy. In front of the threats of suicide of Isabelle, it gives up Rosine (sc.3). The latter arrives while Isabelle hides. Clindor resists to him indeed (sc.4). At this point in time the henchmen of prince Florilame occur who kill Rosine and Clindor. Isabelle, as for it, is brought near the prince who is actually in love with it (sc.5). Pridamant is ploughed up in front of the sarcastic remarks of Alcandre which finishes by him showing his/her son and the other characters, quite alive, dividing money. Clindor and its friends in fact became of the actors and they have just interpreted the last act of a Tragédie. The part finishes on the Apologie theater and trade for actor made by Alcandre with Pridamant to ensure it of the good choice of his/her son (sc.6).

Study of work

Structure

the comic Illusion is based on the reason for the theater in the theater and multiplies the levels of representation:

the first level is that of the complete part with its batch of concerns, nodes and outcomes.
the second is that of the scene between Alcandre and Pridamant, at the same time characters and spectators of what is held in front of them.
the third is that of young people, Clindor and Isabelle, and their adventures.
the fourth and the last is that of the play played by young people.

The theater of the world

The purpose of the complex structure of the part, based on successive enshrinings (theater in the theater) and a set of misleading appearances (the false one died of Clindor), is to mislay the reader. The play of the illusions falls under the idea baroque according to which the life is a theater and one sees in this part how Corneille exploits this idea when merge the true life of Clindor and the part which he plays. The disguise, the change of identity are as many marks of the impregnation baroque on this part. The man becomes true Protée. The cave can also be interpreted like a metaphor of the theater with its scene and its spectators.

The instability of the world

The linearity of the history is several times broken, from many digressions come to break actions which intersect and can remain unfinished (Matamore found after several days). The principal history is intertwined by secondary stories. This inconstancy of the diégèse is reinforced by inconstancy in love with the characters (praise of the inaccuracy by Clindor: V, 3). This instability confines even with the swirl on the end of the part when Pridamant and the reader with him does not know any more what arises from reality or the fiction.

Transgression of the rule of the three units?

One could believe that the traditional units are transgressed:

the tangle of the intrigues breaks the unit of action;
two years are passed between the end of act IV and the beginning of the act V what is irreconcilable with the unit of time;
the unity of place is also put at evil since act I opens in the cave of Alcandre (in Touraine), the three following acts occur to Bordeaux, while the last one takes place in Paris.

One could thus think that we are quite far away from the precepts of the traditional theater which privileges a single intrigue being held in only one day in an interior space but Corneille thwarts this transgression which, if it were true, could make its part nonvalid by doing all to occur in the cave from Alcandre, in only a few hours. So that, considered apron - the threshold of the cave of Alcandre where Pridamant is held -, the part is located well in a single place; it does not last more than the representation itself; finally its action concentrates on the vision of Pridamant and the " réforme" that Alcandre produced on him about its own illusion and of the prejudices which it had on the " comédie" : the laws of the traditional theater are thus present like an envelope; they enchase the theater baroque in a bubble chatoyante but which gives nevertheless to see only " specters". This mitigated and paradoxical compliance with the traditional rules is explained by the fact that work is created for one transitional period, between baroque and classicism. It is not impossible to see there at the same time a homage to the theater baroque and a wild satire of this one. One will incite Corneille thereafter to conform to the standards of the emergent movement, although itself says to regard the comic Illusion as a " caprice" , a " éstrange monstre" (see l' Epistle dédicatoire , and l' Examination of 1660)

Tragic echoes, elements of classicism

Although this part arises mainly from the theater baroque, certain passages are tinted of a strongly tragic color which is not without showing the possibility for the great traditional tragedies which will be born thereafter. In spite of the lightness of the intrigues in love, the topic of dead is found indeed on several occasions. There is of course the false one died of Clindor which comes, one moment, to plunge the part in a tragic atmosphere. This event comes to plunge the spectator in feelings interfered with Terror and Pity (incarnated in the character of Pridamant). When one remembers that they are the two great theatrical emotions there according to Aristote, one easily guesses what this episode contains of classicism in germs. However the most outstanding passages of this set of themes are incontestably the monologs of Isabelle (IV, 1) and of Clindor (IV, 7). Despaired by the “iniquitous judgment” which condemns “a poor unknown” for its “legitimate fire”, Isabelle considers its clean dead out of tragic heroin and declares: “I want to lose the life by losing my love”. But it is not satisfied to want to follow Clindor in death, it starts to hope that its demise will involve the despair of his/her “inhuman father”. Clindor, as for him, expie its frivolities passed while reaching the tragic statute of hero during his monolog. He convenes with him the memories of Isabelle in order to overcome the test of dead and is some transfigured: “I die too glorious, since I die for you! ”. During one moment, it seems to fall down in the fear of dead and despair (" the fear of dead makes me already mourir"). During long a hypotypose (" I see the fatal place where my death prépare"), he saw in imagination his torment. But it is still the image of Isabelle who comes to erase this macabre vision. The love thus enables him to exceed the thought and the fear of death.

Mix theatrical kinds

The Commedia dell' arte

The commedia dell' arte constitutes the primary source of the dramatic revival at the XVIIe century, by synthesizing at the same time the popular tradition and the esthetic research undertaken in the academies of the Rebirth in Italy. The comedia is based on the verbal and physical virtuosity of the actor, without passing by a text common to all; each one composes its role starting from fragments (of the sentence to a whole scene) specific to its character, who keeps his characteristics from one part to another --- “fixed types” like Harlequin, Colombine, Pantalone, the Doctor, of which some carry a mask and a distinctive costume. The character of Matamore and his “boastings” are directly borrowed from this tradition (they go back besides to the ancient theater), just as, more basically, the juxtaposition of gallant and grotesque characters. Another character who can be compared with Matamore is for example Sganarelle, the faithful servant of Dom Juan.

The Pastoral

The pastoral one requires initially a decoration, that of a nature idealized according to the ancient model of Arcadie, reactualized in XVe and XVIe centuries in Italy in works which know an international diffusion, like Pastor Fido de Guarani and Aminta of the Cup, and which will find a prolongation in France in the invaluable novel, whose Astrée of Honore d' Urfé celebrates it. The kind rests on complexes sentimental relations which punctuate of the testing periods, disappearances, of false died, of the meeting again innatendues, and the intervention of supernatural forces (like that of the Alcandre magician). In second half of the century, the pastoral one, far from declining as it is too often believed, will pass in the field of the lyric art --- all the first truly French operas are attached to it.

The first act borrows several characteristics from the kind of pastoral, extremely in vogue in 1st half of the 17th century. The pastoral one recalled in a pastoral decoration the love affairs shepherds and shepherdesses, whose grace of a benevolent nature took care on them. They often consulted a soothsayer (or a druid) to see clearly in their heart, which was all at the same time magician and psychologist. Thus, with its country framework, located in Touraine (I, 1), its " grotte" and its " mage" , the comic illusion is attached to it openly.

The Tragi-comedy

The tragi-comedy employs characters of quality closer to daily reality, confronted with situations where the feelings can be interfered with the businesses State --- Cid de Corneille, paragon of the kind, provide an good example of it ---, without to comprise aspect comic. It also will end up disappearing as a form independent about the middle of the century.

Extracts of importance

The Expository scene (I, 1)

The expository scene of a play is la/les first (S) scene (S), of the first act. Comparable with the incipit of a novel, it must introduce the action, the place, the time, and the characters. Thus, it has an informative role for the reader. August 1st

The monolog of Clindor (IV, 7)

August 1st In this Clindor scene appears such as it is really, it is the only scene where it is sincere, where it does not play another part to like or to make fun… it reveals its love for Isabelle and it is that which will save it of an unquestionable death.

The Apology for the theater (V, 5)

Now the theater

Is in a point so high that each one the idolâtre,

And what your time voyoit with contempt

Is today the love of all the good spirits,

the maintenance with Paris, the wish of the provinces,

the softest entertainment of our princes,

delights of the people, and pleasure of large:

It holds the first rank among their pastimes;

And those of which we see major wisdom

By its famous care to preserve everyone,

Trouvent in softnesses of a so beautiful spectacle

Of what to rest itself of a so heavy burden.

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