Pierre Corneille
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Introduction
Pierre Corneille (6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great 17th-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy along formal lines, but later quarrelled with him, especially over his best-known play, Le Cid, about a medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed Académie Française for breaching the unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years. Le Menteur (The Liar, 1644) was a rare departure into farce.
