Corneille
I haven't been the best at reviewing things lately, and reading three things at once isn't helping, but here's my haphazard review of The Cid.
Do you remember all of that Shakespeare you had to read in high school? Well imagine that written by a 17th Century French man writing about 12th Century Spain. At it's core we follow Don Rodrigo and Ximena love each other and are from families of equal standing, so of course they should be married. After their fathers, Don Diego and The Count come to this agreement some lofty insults are thrown about and Rodrigo is sent to regain the family honor by killing his true loves father. From here on out the play reads like a grown up Romeo and Juliet, where the main characters realize there are consequences to their actions and will respectfully pay them.
I wasn't in love with this story, or the class for which I had to read it, but I think it's interesting to look at classic literature that I've never heard of before. I'll definitely give Corneille another chance since I have two other plays in this book.
Now I want to hear from you guys!
Have any of you read Corneille? I'd love to hear what you thought of him.
I've also been musing on if it's fair to really dissect a play like The Cid, which has been translated from its original text and still comment on the poetic structure used in the writing. I once had a teacher tell my class not to judge the actual words we were reading because no matter how close they are to the original text, they still arn't the same. At the time we were reading Gogol and while I liked the translation, I really took that concept to heart.
I'll actually be reading a few novels for my classes in the next few weeks, and David Sedaris and Nicole Krauss both have new books coming out so I'll be pretty busy, reading wise - but that's all the better for all of you, right?
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