HALL OF MIRRORS: REFLECTIONS OF SENTIMENTAL AND POLITICAL POWER IN CORNEILLE'S THEATER (PIERRE CORNEILLE, FRANCE, KINGSHIP, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In the Corneille's theater, the issues of love and kingship are a thematic cornerstone, yet while each is important in its own right Corneille deftly plays the two concepts off of one another and in doing so, uncovers the philosophical intricacies of each. Drawing on a traditional Christian model of kingship, one originated in the medieval polity and brought to fruition by theorists of absolutism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Corneille adds complexity to this model by introducing ideas on individual power and responsibility from the Neo-Stoics, such as Justus Lipsius, and the constitutional monarchs, including Claude Seyssel. Heavily influenced by the optimistic humanism of theorists such as Jean Bodin and Guillaume Budé, Corneille celebrates both the office of the monarch as well as the individual for their powers of creation and innovation. What Corneille does to take the discussion to a new level of interest, then, is examine these models of sovereignty in tandem with Platonic theories of love. Drawing upon the poetics of Neo-Platonist such as Dante, Petrarch, Ficino, and Marot, Corneille paints a noble an elegant portrait of the mistress, endowing her with spiritual knowledge and divine aspect, a portrait that he then compares to that of the political monarch.
Creating a parallel between the two sovereigns, political and sentimental, Corneille creates a vision of authority as mediating power between human and divine, and he consequently nuances this paradigm as he investigates the obstacle that face both ruler and subject in the realization of this vision. The primary obstacle faced in this optimistic enterprise is that of self-love, and in discussing the problem of self-love, Corneille also draws upon a set of philosophical and political theory that emphasize the hold self-love and personal interest have over man. What ultimately emerges, then, is a complex and subtle model of authority, one that tempers the original positive model with philosophical realism, yet one that retains the mediating power and that still has the power to incorporate the subject into household, community, state, and universe.