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47-480: An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic practice known as the Querelle du Cid (Quarrel of The Cid ). Cardinal Richelieu 's Académie française acknowledged the play's success, but determined that it was defective, in part because it did not respect the classical unities . Today, Le Cid is widely regarded as Corneille's finest work, and

94-717: A bloody sword, and believes he has killed Rodrigue. She cries that she loved Rodrigue, and pleads not to marry the victor, but will instead enter a convent and grieve forever over her father and Rodrigue. She will leave all of her possessions to Don Sanche. However, the king tells her Rodrigue is still alive. Rodrigue disarmed Don Sanche but decided to let him live. Don Sanche says the two should marry because of their obvious love for one another. The king tells Chimène she has served her father enough by putting Rodrigue in danger and no longer needs to avenge him. He tells her to do something for herself by marrying Rodrigue, but realizes she still needs time to “dry her tears.” They will be married in

141-510: A classical alexandrine context and forming no more than one quarter of the alexandrine lines written during this time. Passages of classical alexandrines were still written by these poets, as for example this rimes croisées quatrain by Charles Baudelaire : La très-chère était nue, | et, connaissant mon cœur, Elle n'avait gardé | que ses bijoux sonores, Dont le riche attirail | lui donnait l'air vainqueur Qu'ont dans leurs jours heureux | les esclaves des Maures. My most darling

188-475: A discussion of the merits of the play. Georges de Scudéry , another dramatist, wrote a critique of the play as well. He claimed Corneille was "deifying" himself. He intended to prove that the play's plot was worthless, abused the basic rules of dramatic poetry, pursues an erratic course, and all of the play's beauties are stolen. Jean Chapelain wrote the document for the Académie, which particularly criticizes

235-616: A marker. The earliest recorded use of alexandrines is in the Medieval French poem Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne of 1150, but the name derives from their more famous use in part of the Roman d'Alexandre of 1170. L. E. Kastner states: From about the year 1200 the Alexandrine began to supplant the decasyllabic line as the metre of the chansons de geste , and at the end of the thirteenth century it had gained so completely

282-597: A play to have a strong beginning, middle, and end. There is only one complete action in the play, but it can evolve through several other incomplete actions. The play was set in only one city, which Corneille believed should be equivalent to unity of place. Setting: The play takes place in the city of Seville in the Castile region of Spain during the second half of the 11th century. Act I The play opens with Chimène hearing from her governess, Elvire, that Chimène's father believes Don Rodrigue, who Chimène also favors, to be

329-565: A polemic against Eugen Dühring , and Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme against Ferdinand Lasalle . Vladimir Lenin published polemics against political opponents. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky was notably directed against Karl Kautsky , and other works such as The State and Revolution attacked figures including Eduard Bernstein . In the 20th century, George Orwell 's Animal Farm

376-714: A year, and in the meantime, Rodrigue will continue to fight against the Moors and remain faithful to Chimène and become even more worthy of her love. The play is written in rhyming couplets with alternating masculine and feminine rhymes, as is typical of French drama. The opening lines are as follows: Chimène. Elvire, m'as-tu fait un rapport bien sincère ? Ne déguises-tu rien de ce qu'a dit mon père ? Elvire. Tous mes sens à moi-même en sont encor charmés : Il estime Rodrigue autant que vous l'aimez, Et si je ne m'abuse à lire dans son âme, Il vous commandera de répondre à sa flamme. Some English translations of

423-515: Is ashamed by this encounter and asks his son to avenge him and fight the count. Rodrigue realizes if he fights and kills the count, he will lose Chimène's love, but still chooses to fight to honor his father's name. Act II Don Arias tells the count that the king forbids a duel between him and Rodrigue, but the count arrogantly disobeys and wants to fight regardless. He taunts Rodrigue but also commends him for his lack of fear and spirit and asks him to stand down, but Rodrigue refuses. Chimène tells

470-528: Is considered one of the greatest plays of the seventeenth century. The stories of the Cid are based on the life of the Spanish warrior Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar , who lived approximately from 1043 until 1099. The real "Cid" seems to have fought for both Muslims and Christians at different times and appears to have been a sellsword figure. In the play, however, he is lauded solely as a Christian soldier. The name "El Cid"

517-558: Is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics , which are seen in arguments on controversial topics. A person who writes polemics, or speaks polemically, is called a polemicist . The word derives from Ancient Greek πολεμικός ( polemikos )  'warlike, hostile', from πόλεμος ( polemos )  'war'. Polemics often concern questions in religion or politics. A polemical style of writing

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564-527: Is perfectly metrical, and the rule of alternation of rhymes is followed. The result is somewhat analogous to the Pindarics of Abraham Cowley . Two of the most famous works written in vers libres are Jean de La Fontaine 's Fables and Molière 's Amphitryon . Vers libéré was a mid-to-late-19th-century extension of the liberties begun to be taken by the Romantics with their embrace of

611-411: The alexandrin ternaire . The liberties taken included the weakening, movement, and erasure of caesurae, and rejection of the rule of alternation of rhymes. Although writers of vers libéré consistently continued to use rhyme, many of them accepted categories of rhyme which were previously considered "careless" or unusual. The alexandrine was not their only metrical target; they also cultivated

658-423: The "classical alexandrine", vers héroïque , or grands vers , it became the dominant long line of French verse up to the end of the 19th century, and was "elevated to the status of national symbol and eventually came to typify French poetry overall". The classical alexandrine is always rhymed. The règle d'alternance des rimes (rule of alternation of rhymes), which was a tendency in some poets before

705-602: The 18th century include Jonathan Swift , with pamphlets such as his A Modest Proposal , Alexander Hamilton , with pieces such as A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress and A Farmer Refuted , and Edmund Burke , with his attack on the Duke of Bedford . In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 's 1848 Communist Manifesto was extremely polemical. Both Marx and Engels would publish further polemical works, with Engels's work Anti-Dühring serving as

752-444: The Académie argued, historical events such as this should not be dramatized. Too many actions occur in a 24-hour period, and Le Cid did not conform to unity of place. In response to these critiques, Corneille argued that his play evoked both pity and fear. The characters of Rodrigue and Chimène, he noted, have virtue, which is what leads to their passions, thereby causing the misfortune. He argued that multiple actions worked well for

799-567: The Moors are going to attack. Rodrigue must fight them, and if he returns alive and a winner, the king will praise him and he will regain Chimène's love. Act IV Rodrigue goes to war and is very successful. The captured Moors even revere him, and call him “The Cid.” The Infante begs Chimène to give up her quest to kill Rodrigue, but Chimène refuses. The king tricks Chimène into believing Rodrigue has been killed, and her reaction proves to everyone that she still loves him. Regardless, she still feels

846-978: The Pléiade, was "firmly established by Ronsard in the sixteenth century and rigorously decreed by Malherbe in the seventeenth." It states that "a masculine rime cannot be immediately followed by a different masculine rime, or a feminine rime by a different feminine rime." This rule resulted in the preponderance of three rhyme schemes, though others are possible. (Masculine rhymes are given in lowercase, and feminine in CAPS): These lines by Corneille (with formal paraphrase) exemplify classical alexandrines with rimes suivies : Nous partîmes cinq cents; | mais par un prompt renfort Nous nous vîmes trois mille | en arrivant au port, Tant, à nous voir marcher | avec un tel visage, Les plus épouvantés | reprenaient de courage! As five hundred we left, | but soon we gained support: To three thousand we grew | as we approached

893-428: The alexandrine, but just as the alexandrine was chief among lines, it is the chief target of these modifications. Vers libres (also vers libres classiques , vers mêlés , or vers irréguliers ) are found in a variety of minor and hybrid genres of the 17th and 18th century. The works are composed of lines of various lengths, without regularity in distribution or order; however, each individual line

940-602: The ancient historian Polybius practiced "quite bitter self-righteous polemic" against some twenty philosophers, orators, and historians. Polemical writings were common in medieval and early modern times. During the Middle Ages, polemic had a religious dimension, as in Jewish texts written to protect and dissuade Jewish communities from converting to other religions . Medieval Christian writings were also often polemical; for example in their disagreements on Islam or in

987-728: The count's cruelty to Diègue and his agreement to duel Rodrigue. The king also worries about a potential impending attack by the Moorish navy moving toward his lands. Don Alonse enters and announces that Rodrigue has killed the count. Act III Rodrigue comes to Chimène's home, and tells Elvire that he will be killed by Chimène's hand. Elvire tells him to flee, and he hides as Chimène approaches. Chimène tells Elvire of her conflicting feelings, but that she must make sure Rodrigue dies. She plans to follow him in death afterward. Rodrigue reveals himself and gives Chimène his sword to kill him, but she cannot. Rodrigue returns home, and his father tells him

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1034-561: The end of the 14th century, the line was "totally abandoned, being ousted by its old rival the decasyllabic"; and despite occasional isolated attempts, would not regain its stature for almost 200 years. The alexandrine was resurrected in the middle of the 16th century by the poets of the Pléiade , notably Étienne Jodelle (tragedy), Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (narrative), Jean-Antoine de Baïf (lyric), and Pierre de Ronsard . Later, Pierre Corneille introduced its use in comedy. It

1081-467: The great ¦ nitwit | alexandrin exemplifies the structure of the alexandrin ternaire , which preserves the medial caesura with a word break, but de-emphasizes it by surrounding it with two stronger phrase breaks after syllables four and eight: Although generally embraced by the French Romantics and Symbolists , the alexandrin ternaire remained a supplemental line, used within

1128-556: The implausibility of Chimène's continued affection for Rodrigue after he kills her father. Her agreement to marry Rodrigue as the King commands made her an immoral character, Chapelain argued, which was a danger to the viewing public and their morals. He said implausible and immoral characters should not be featured in plays, even if they are based in history. Corneille ignored this and proved that plays did not need to be educative, always showing evil being punished. Plot points must be necessary,

1175-552: The need to avenge her father's death. Don Sanche says he will fight Rodrigue on her behalf, and she promises to marry whoever triumphs. Act V Rodrigue comes to Chimène and says he will not defend himself in the fight against Don Sanche. She says he must truly fight to save her from a marriage to Don Sanche. In a monologue, the Infante declares that Rodrigue belongs to Chimène, if so little hatred has come between them since he killed her father. Chimène sees Don Sanche come in with

1222-416: The play imitate the rhyme scheme, while others are written in prose. The play's meter is alexandrine (or vers alexandrin ), which was popular in classical French poetry. Each line must contain 12 syllables, and major accents are placed on the 6th and 12th syllables. The caesure (caesura, or pause) occurs after the 6th syllable, halfway through the line. It is frequently used as a strong syntactic break in

1269-499: The play is the basis for the opera Le Cid by Jules Massenet and partly for Handel 's Flavio . Roger Iglésias directed a made-for-television adaptation, which was broadcast on February 24, 1962. A number of literary, theatrical, and film parodies also exist, mostly in French culture. Polemic Polemic ( / p ə ˈ l ɛ m ɪ k / pə- LEHM -ick , US also /- ˈ l i m ɪ k / -⁠LEEM-ick )

1316-419: The play up to Aristotle's Poetics and its prescriptions, but Corneille argued that great tragic characters are inherently implausible. He took a difficult topic and showed, rather realistically, how it might occur. This disagreement and the discussions following it are known as "La Querelle du Cid," or The Quarrel of The Cid. After its premiere, Cardinal Richelieu asked the new Académie française to write

1363-419: The polemic tradition. In 2008 the humanist philosopher A. C. Grayling published a book, Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness . French Alexandrine The French alexandrine ( French : alexandrin ) is a syllabic poetic metre of (nominally and typically) 12 syllables with a medial caesura dividing the line into two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each. It

1410-487: The port. Thus, seeing us all march | in league and with such favor, The fear melted away, | the throng becoming braver! The classical alexandrine was early recognized as having a prose-like effect, for example by Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay . This in part explains the strictness with which its prosodic rules (e.g. medial caesura and end rhyme) were kept; they were felt necessary to preserve its distinction and unity as verse. Nevertheless, several strategies for reducing

1457-402: The princess how distraught she is about her lover and her father fighting. A page notifies them that he saw the two men leaving the palace. Chimène realizes they have gone to duel, and leaves quickly. The Infante considers if Rodrigue wins the duel, Chimène will reject him, and the Infante will be able to win him after all. Meanwhile, the king tells Don Sancho and Don Arias of his anger regarding

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1504-461: The reading public at least — can be dated exactly: 1886; in this year, editor Gustave Kahn published several seminal vers libre poems in his review La Vogue , including poems by Arthur Rimbaud (written over a decade previously) and Jules Laforgue , with more following in the next years. Vers libre shed all metrical and prosodic constraints, such as verse length, rhyme, and caesura; Laforgue said, "I forget to rhyme, I forget about

1551-402: The strictness of the verse form have been employed over the centuries. Although used in exceptional cases by some 17th-century French poets, Victor Hugo popularized the alexandrin ternaire (also referred to as trimètre ) as an alternative rhythm to the classical alexandrine. His famous self-descriptive line: J'ai disloqué | ce grand ¦ niais | d'alexandrin I dislocate |

1598-428: The stronger choice for her marriage. Chimène, however, does not allow herself yet to be overjoyed, and fears that fate might change her father's mind. In the second scene, the Infante (or princess) reveals to her maid that she is in love with Rodrigue, but could never marry him because of his lower social class. Therefore, she has decided to bring Chimène and Rodrigue together in order to extinguish her own passions. In

1645-526: The third scene, Chimène's father, Don Gomès, Count de Gormas, has learned that the king has asked Rodrigue's old father, Don Diègue, to tutor the Prince of Castile. The count believes he is worthier of the position than Diègue, and tells Diègue this. Diègue says the two should become friends and have their children married. The count refuses and slaps Diègue, who draws his sword but is too weak to hold it. The count disarms him and insults him before leaving. Diègue

1692-441: The upper hand as the epic line that several of the old chansons in the decasyllabic line were turned into Alexandrines... These early alexandrines were slightly looser rhythmically than those reintroduced in the 16th century. Significantly, they allowed an "epic caesura" — an extrametrical mute e at the close of the first hemistich (half-line), as exemplified in this line from the medieval Li quatre fils Aymon : However, toward

1739-650: The use of vers impair — lines with an odd, rather than even, number of syllables. These uneven lines, though known from earlier French verse, were relatively uncommon and helped suggest a new rhythmic register. Vers libre is the source of the English term free verse , and is effectively identical in meaning. It can be seen as a radical extension of the tendencies of both vers libres (various and unpredictable line lengths) and vers libéré (weakening of strictures for caesura and rhymes, as well as experimentation with unusual line lengths). Its birth — for

1786-690: The vast corpus aimed at converting the Jews. Martin Luther 's 95 Theses was a polemic launched against the Catholic Church. Robert Carliell 's 1619 defence of the new Church of England and diatribe against the Roman Catholic Church – Britaine's glorie, or An allegoricall dreame with the exposition thereof: containing The Heathens infidelitie in religion ... – took the form of a 250-line poem. Major political polemicists of

1833-466: The wording. Each half of the line (6 syllables) is referred to as a hemistich ( hémistiche). Enjambment is not used in the French alexandrin, but is sometimes employed in English translation of the verse. The name of the line originated from the Roman d'Alexandre , written in 1170. Scholars estimate that at least twenty-six composers have created an operatic adaptation of the classic tale. Most notably,

1880-514: Was a polemic against totalitarianism , in particular of Stalinism in the Soviet Union . According to McClinton, other prominent polemicists of the same century include such diverse figures as Herbert Marcuse , Noam Chomsky , John Pilger , and Michael Moore . In 2007 Brian McClinton argued in Humani that anti-religious books such as Richard Dawkins 's The God Delusion are part of

1927-449: Was bare | but she knew my desire So her bright jewels she wore, | her tinkling chains, her treasure: Such an air of command | in her golden attire, Like to a Moor's slave girl | in the days of her pleasure. These three similar terms (in French vers libres and vers libre are homophones ) designate distinct historical strategies to introduce more prosodic variety into French verse. All three involve verse forms beyond just

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1974-820: Was common in Ancient Greece , as in the writings of the historian Polybius . Polemic again became common in medieval and early modern times. Since then, famous polemicists have included satirist Jonathan Swift , Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo , French theologian Jean Calvin , French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire , Russian author Leo Tolstoy , socialist philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , novelist George Orwell , playwright George Bernard Shaw , communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin , linguist Noam Chomsky , social critics H.L.Mencken Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens , and existential philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche . Polemical journalism

2021-559: Was common in continental Europe when libel laws were not as stringent as they are now. To support study of 17th to 19th century controversies, a British research project has placed online thousands of polemical pamphlets from that period. Discussions of atheism, humanism, and Christianity have remained open to polemic into the 21st century. In Ancient Greece , writing was characterised by what Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin called "strident adversariality" and "rationalistic aggressiveness", summed up by McClinton as polemic. For example,

2068-600: Was derived from the Arabic word for lord ("sayyid") and made Spanish, and further given a French article for Corneille's version. To this day, the Cid remains a popular Spanish folklore character, who has inspired many stories and works of art. The play is derived from Guillén de Castro 's play Las Mocedades del Cid , published in 1618 and written somewhere between 1612 and 1615. Because of the pieces' similarities, Jean Mairet accused Corneille of plagiarism in March 1637. Le Cid

2115-424: Was metrically stricter, allowing no epic caesura: Typically, each hemistich also holds one secondary accent which may occur on any of the first five syllables, most frequently on the third; this frequently balanced four-part structure resulted in one of several monikers for the line: alexandrin tétramètre (in contradistinction to the trimètre or alexandrin ternaire described below). Often called

2162-531: Was originally staged at the Théâtre du Marais in December 1636. The play was a success, although it was quite controversial due to its divergence from the standard playwriting guidelines of the time. The piece was groundbreaking for a few reasons. It had a happy ending, which was rare for "tragedies" of the time, and allowed later tragicomic playwrights to end their plays in a variety of ways. Critics tried to hold

2209-487: Was the dominant long line of French poetry from the 17th through the 19th century, and influenced many other European literatures which developed alexandrines of their own. According to verse historian Mikhail Gasparov , the French alexandrine developed from the Ambrosian octosyllable, by gradually losing the final two syllables, then doubling this line in a syllabic context with phrasal stress rather than length as

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