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Pierre Corneille (Critical Survey of Drama)

Other Literary Forms

Although Pierre Corneille is known principally for his plays, he wrote a number of poems and at least one ballet libretto. Of his poetry there remain approximately one hundred pieces in French and a small number in Latin. Outside the theater, however, his best-known literary work is a long religious poem of thirteen thousand lines, the Imitation de Jésus-Christ, published in its entirety in 1656. A free translation of Saint Thomas à Kempis’s Latin work, it enjoyed an immediate success; four editions were published in 1656 alone. Another...

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