CORNEILLE'S LE CID EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND Notes BY F. M. WARREN PROFESSOR OF ROMANCE LANguages, Yale University BOSTON, U.S.A. D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers PREFACE. THIS edition of Le Cid aims especially at emphasizing its literary significance. For this reason it contains the articles written by Corneille in answer to his critics, and in which he judges his own work. The text follows that of the Marty-Laveaux edition (in the Hachette series of "Les Grands Écrivains de la France "), reproduced from Corneille's last revision of 1682. In volume iii. of this edition may be found the variants to the play, the lines of Castro's Las Mocedades del Cid which were more particularly imitated by Corneille, and an analysis of the Spanish drama. The history of the French stage after 1550 and previous to 1630 is considered at length in E. Rigal's "Alexandre Hardy" (Paris, 1889). To understand the literary bearing of Le Cid and Corneille's dramatic ideas at the time, one should also consult the Spanish original (Las Mocedades del Cid, primera parte, edited by E. Mérimée, Toulouse, 1890). For historical data concerning the hero and his surroundings there is nothing more recent than R. Dozy's "Recherches sur l'histoire de l'Espagne" (third edition, Leyden, 1881). I can find no reliable account of the Cid's family. In the preparation of its notes this edition owes much to the two American editions of Professors Joynes and Schele de Vere, and the French edition of Gustave Larroumet (Paris, Garnier Frères). The "Lexique " occasionally cited is the one compiled by Marty-Laveaux in volumes xi. and xii. of his edition. Many of the literary comments were suggested by the same scholar, by Scudéry's Observations sur le Cid, and by the Academy's Sentiments-both published in Marty-Laveaux' twelfth volume. References are also made to Voltaire's Remarques sur le Cid, included in his Commentaires sur Corneille, and to Sainte-Beuve's three articles on the play, in volume vii. of his "Nouveaux Lundis." The ques tion of the unities of time and place in Le Cid, discussed in the Introduction, is argued more in detail in the Modern Language Notes for January, 1895, while for the rules of classical versification I am allowed to refer to Professor Eggert's Introduction to his edition of Athalie (D. C. Heath & Co.), recently published. CLEVELAND, June 24, 1895. F. M. WARREN. |