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STAGE (From p. 3)
condemned Corneille's Le Cid (1636 or 1637). His later dramas were enlivened by lyrical passages, by the use of choruses and spectacular settings, and by the turn from classical subjects, for example, Bérénice (1670) and Phèdre (1677), to biblical subjects in Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691). In all his dramas women were the chief protagonists, and the dramatic tensions were derived chiefly from the vicissitudes of love. Corneille sought to realize the Aristotelian unities of place, time, and action, but the dramatic tension in his tragedies was psychological, deriving from aspirations and frustrations of his char
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