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Polyeucte and the de Imitatione Christi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Marie Philip Haley
Marie Philip Haley*
Affiliation:
College of St. Catherine, St. Paul 5, Minn.
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Extract

In his masterly study of le Sentiment de l'Amour dans I'CEuvre de Pierre Corneille, M. Octave Nadal makes one reservation regarding Polyeucte. After rooting the spiritual adventure of the martyr in the climate of conjugal love where both blood and spirit stir, M. Nadal acknowledges nonetheless a certain ambiguity in the psychology of the hero. He goes so far as to say that in Polyeucte's speeches one could easily find “des formules” which deny the heroism and grandeur of human love at the same time that “l'action même du martyr ne tend jamais qu'à les prouver et à les consacrer.” M. R. Chauviré and M. Raymond Lebègue have made similar observations.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , June 1960 , pp. 174 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1960

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References

1 4th ed. (Paris, 1948), p. 276.

2 French Studies, II (1948), 12.

3 French Studies, iii (1949), 217–218.

4 H. C. Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, 1932), Pt. ii, vol. i, 321; and Nadal, pp. 184–193, 210–211, 275–276.

5 Nadal, pp. 192–200. For the “acceleration organique” from le Cid through Horace and Cinna to Polyeucte, see Charles Peguy, Victor Marie, comte Hugo in CEuvres Completes (Paris: NRF, 1916), iv, 462–468 and Note conjoinle sur M, Descartes et la Philosophic Cartesienne, ibid., ix, 182 ff.

6 Marty-Laveaux, CEuvres de P. Corneille, ix, 6. This ed. will hereafter be abbreviated M.-L. See also two letters to the R. P. Boulart, 30 March 1652 and 10 June 1656 (M.-L., x, 460, 471); Au lecteur of eds. 1653B and 1654A of the Imitation (M.-L., viii, 24), also eds. 1652, 1653C, (M.-L., viii, 9[n. 4], 20).

7 M.-L., iii, 474–478. The full-length version may be found in Surius: Historia seu vita sanctorum (Typographia Pontiicia et Archiepiscopali, 1875–80), ii, 325–330.

8 Pt. II, vol. I, 322.

9 M. Nadal says of the role of love: “II a apprivoise' Polyeucte a ces fruits d'eternite, tout en lui signifiant une impossibility radicale de les garder. Apres avoir comble les amants de la vision d'une joie tternelle, il les a laisses retomber a leur terrestre situation. Pauline a eu ce pouvoir de composer pour Polyeucte, par les devices charnelles, une evasion hors du temps et des lieux, une autonomie du coeur; mais en meme temps elle ne pouvait pas ne pas lui en reveler l'illusion” (pp. 212 et passim). M. Nadal's understanding springs from that fuller and deeper knowledge of the essential structures of love reached in our age by philosophers like Max Scheler, who was perhaps the first to note that certain ultimate experiences of being are accessible only to the man who loves. Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 5. aufl. (Frankfurt, 1948). See also Jean Guitton: Essai sur I'amour humain (Paris, 1948). Corneille with the psychological insight that was a part of his genius would have fathomed the depths where human and divine loves meet long before the philosophers had penetrated there.

10 The Genesis and Sources of Pierre Corneille's Tragedies from M&dee to Pertharile (Baltimore, 1926), p. 62. The italics are mine.

11 M.-L., iii, 477. The italics are mine.

12 Pierre Corneille (Paris, c1938), p. 228.

13 VEvolution de la tragedie religieuse classique en France (Paris, 1933), p. 241.

14 Port-Royal, Livre I, chaps, vi and vii.

15 “La question de la Grace dans Polyeucte,” RHL, XLIII (1936), 66–68.

16 Polyeucte de Corneille (Paris, 1944), pp. 85–93.

17 Benichou, Morales du Grand Steele, 5th ed. (Paris, 1948), pp. 77–86; Loukovitch, pp. 241–249; Henri Busson, La Religion des Classiques (1660–1685) (Paris, 1948), p. 48, n. (1).

18 The word grace occurs in St. Paul 94 times as against 36 times in the rest of the New Testament. N. Thompson, Verbal Concordance to the New Testament (Baltimore, 1928).

19 Especially baptism as the “sign” of the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. vi. 4) and the Mystical Body, although Surius had expressed in its most abbreviated form this union between Christ and Christians: Nearchus prefers no riches, glory, or honors to the “vitas qua? est in Christo” (II, 327, sec. 5).

20 Surius contains little that is directly traceable to the Vulgate except for five instances of the power of faith which Nearchus adduces to convince Polyeuctus that baptism of desire would be enough in the case of a martyr. Once Corneille had decided to introduce effective baptism, there was no longer any occasion for this argument. See below note 33.

21 Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille, trans. Douglas Ainslie (New York, 1920), p. 384.

22 Corneille (Paris, 1913), p. 195.

23 Leonard A. Wheatley, The Story of the “Imitatio Christi” (London, 1891), p. 168.

24 On 22 Sept. 1650, he obtained a privilege to print the first 20 chapters. E. Picot, Bibliographic Cornelienne (Paris, 1876), p. 153.

25 Vie de Corneille quoted by M.-L., viii, i. Jules Levallois quotes Voltaire, who claims that Corneille's translation sold well because the Jesuits “firent lire le livre a leurs devotes et dans les couvents; ils le pr6naient, on l'achetait et on s'en-nuyait” (Corneille Inconnu [Paris, 1876], p. 289).

26 Corneille gives a summary in his Epitre. M.-L., viii, 2.

27 Grace is a “gratuitous gift infused by God into the rational creature with reference to the end: eternal life” (The Catholic Concise Encyclopedia, ed. Robert C. Broderick [St. Paul, Minnesota, c1957]).

28 Lib. II, Cap. ix; Lib. iii, Cap. vii, xliii, and lv. In all subsequent references to the Imit., the Book number will be in small caps and the Chap, number in lower case.

29 iii, liv. The italics in this and in all subsequent quotations are mine. Quotations of the Imit. in English will be from the revised trans. Humphrey Milford (Oxford Univ. Press, 1900).

30 Polyeucte, l. 1149; Imit. iii, iii, xxx.

31 Polyeucte, ll. 1109–14, 1150; Imit. iii, iii, xx, lix.

32 iii, xliii. See also iii, i, ii.

33 J. Calvet (pp. 78–79, 262–264) shows that Corneille's shift from the baptism of desire in Surius to effective baptism changes radically the motivation of the martyr and makes grace the mainspring of the tragedy. In Surius, Polyeucte's enthusiasm was kindled, not by grace of a sacrament, but by Nearchus' argument that a catechumen could gain heaven directly by martyrdom alone.

34 i, xxiii. For a contrast between the highly figurative expression of the New Testament and the plain speech of the de Imitatione, see Matt. xxiv. 42–44 and xxv. 1–10; James iv. 14–15.

35 Cf. “The devil sleepeth not; neither is the flesh as yet dead; therefore cease not to prepare thyself to the battle; for on thy right hand and on thy left are enemies who never rest” (Imit., ii, ix).

36 “Meditation on the Two Standards” (2nd Week, 4th Day) and “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits” (14th rule).

37 J. E. G. De Montmorency, Thomas a Kempis: His Age and His Book (New York, 1906), p. 246.

38 In thought this is close to several passages of the Imit., e.g., “all carnal joy entereth gently (blande) but in the end it biteth and stingeth to death” (i, xx).

39 Pp. 228–229. See also Jacques Madaule: “Avant d'etre un poeme du martyre, Polyeucte est un poeme du mariage chretien, le plus sublime de toute notre litterature” (Reconnaissances III [Paris, 1943–], p. 123).

40 Genie, 2e Partie, Livre iii, Chap. viii.

41 The follower is urged to be inwardly free and a master of his actions, not a “slave.” He should be like freemen “whom temporal things draw not to cleave unto them: rather they draw temporal things to serve them well, in such ways as they are ordained by God” (iii, xxxviii).

42 See also the passage in S. Luke which probably served as a source for the Imit.: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (xiv. 26). Since this verse includes the word “wife” and also the idea of hating life itself, which is expressed in 1. 76 of Polyeucte, it is a possible direct source of Corneille's passage. The idea of “hating” life is, however, also found in the de Imitatione and even in the same chapter (i, xviii) as the enumeration just referred to. S. Matthew (x. 37–39) does not mention “wife.”

43 See Lanson, pp. 194–195.

44 See Lanson (p. 197) for Corneille's idea of man: “ce bon catholique… a en morale un ideal humain plus stoicien qu'evang61ique… il a recu la doctrine commune de son temps, un melange de philosophie et de christianisme, avec quelques teintes de prejuges mondains.” See Henri Busson (la Religion des Classiques (1660–1685), pp. 198–201) for attacks made upon the paganism (stoicism) of Corneille even during his own lifetime; also Gonzague de Reynold (Le XVIIe Siecle: Le Classique et le Baroque [Montreal, 1944], pp. 61–63, 159–165) for an analysis of the Christianized form of stoicism and for the persistence of scholastic thought.

I do not consider it necessary to consider here the possibility of direct Cartesian influence on the spirituality of Polyeucle. As Lanson points out, in matters where the psychology of Descartes and Corneille meet, “ce n'est pas que l'un ait instruit l'autre: c'est que… la meme nature off rait des sujets a l'analyse du philosophe, des modeles a l'art du poete” (p. 174). The internal points of contact in this “affinite intime” have been studied more recently by Ernest Cassirer in Descartes, Corneille, Christine de Suede (Paris, 1942), pp. 3–31, 36–37, et passim. See also Benichou, Morales du Grand Siecle, pp. 25–26.