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metaphorical cloud that becomes present when

one abandons reasoned analysis and enters an in-

tangible place of unknowing. Other scholars in-

terpret the cloud as a metaphor for the

“darkness” that blinds humans to God’s love. The

Cloud of Unknowing’s message, however, seems

to be that by abandoning typical modes of un-

derstanding the world and faith and by embrac-

ing love, one will experience “a loving impulse

and a dark gazing into the simple being of God

himself.”

See also Margery KEMPE.

An English Version of The Cloud of

Unknowing

Underhill, Evelyn, ed. The Cloud of Unknowing: The

Classic of Medieval Mysticism. Mineola, N.Y.:

Dover, 2003.

A Work about The Cloud of Unknowing

Johnston, William. The Mysticism of the Cloud of Un-

knowing. New York: Fordham University Press,

2000.

Columbus, Christopher (Cristóbal

Colón, Cristoforo Colombo)

(1451–1506) explorer

One of the most famous figures in Western history,

Columbus fundamentally changed the course of

history with his discovery of the Americas in the

late 1400s. By focusing European attention on the

unexplored continents of North and South Amer-

ica, Columbus set the stage for the eventual West-

ern domination of the world, which would last for

centuries. His discovery also marked the beginning

of the destruction of Native American civilization,

for which he and the Spanish have been severely

criticized.

Columbus was Italian, born in the city of

Genoa. At that time, Genoa was a powerful city-

state, and Italy was experiencing the political and

cultural transformation of the RENAISSANCE.Rela-

tively little is known about Columbus’s early life.

His father was a weaver of wool and could not af-

ford an extensive education for his children.

Columbus apparently became a sailor in his

teens, although the exact date is unknown. He

served on merchant vessels, traveling throughout

the Mediterranean. He also ventured into those

parts of the Atlantic that were well known to Euro-

peans, voyaging to England and even as far north

as Iceland.

He eventually made his permanent home in

Portugal, which was then in the midst of an era of

extensive sea exploration, begun earlier in the cen-

tury by Prince Henry the Navigator. The goal of

the Portuguese was to send vessels all the way

around Africa to find a trade route to the East In-

dies, where access to expensive spices would make

Portugal a fabulously wealthy nation.

Columbus intensely studied the question of

how to reach the Indies. He eventually decided

that, rather than sail east around Africa, it was bet-

ter to sail west across the Atlantic Ocean. Contrary

to popular belief, educated people in the 15th cen-

tury knew the world was a sphere, but the idea of

a voyage across the unexplored Atlantic was still re-

garded as foolhardy.

Finding no support in Portugal for his naviga-

tional plan, Columbus journeyed to Spain, where

he won the support of Queen Isabella and King

Ferdinand. Their support proved to be one of the

most important decisions in history.

In the summer of 1492, Columbus set sail in

three vessels. As was customary for sea captains,

Columbus kept a daily journal throughout the

voyage. It would eventually be called the Book of

the First Navigation and Discovery of the Indies,

often referred to as the Journal of the First Voyage.

Although the voyage was comparatively quiet,

the weeks that passed without sight of land

began to wear on the crewmen’s morale. Finally,

on October 12, the tiny fleet sighted land. Histo-

rians have disputed where Columbus actually

landed in the New World, although most evi-

dence suggests that it was the island of San Sal-

vador in the Bahamas.

Columbus, Christopher 57

Columbus explored the surrounding territory

for several weeks, believing that he had discovered

islands off the coast of China. He was unaware that

the land he had found was, in fact, part of an en-

tirely new and unknown continent. His lack of un-

derstanding continued until his death.

After returning from his voyage, Columbus se-

cured additional funding and, over the course of

the next few years, made three additional voyages

of discovery to the New World. Each would chart

new territories and promote further exploration.

Columbus also worked at establishing Spanish

colonies in the new lands, which resulted in the an-

nihilation and enslavement of native populations.

Toward the end of his life, Columbus fell out of

favor with Spain’s rulers. He died on May 20, but

his discoveries radically changed the course of his-

tory. Until the late 15th century, Europe had been

focused on the Mediterranean and the struggles

against the Muslim powers to the East. After

Columbus, however, Europe increasingly turned

its attention to the Americas. The empires created

by various nations there would bring wealth and

power to Western civilization and would result in

the creation of new nations, including the United

States of America.

In addition to being an able sea captain,

Columbus was a skilled writer. The Book of the

First Navigation and Discovery of the Indies was far

more than a stilted, dull logbook. His account of

the voyage contains exact descriptions of the peo-

ple and places encountered during the voyage, as

well as musings on the future of Spanish policy. It

also contains a lively sense of adventure, which in-

spired numerous explorers who came after

Columbus.

English Versions of a Work by

Christopher Columbus

Across the Ocean Sea: A Journal of Columbus’s Voyage.

Edited by George Sanderlin. New York: Harper

and Row, 1966.

The Four Voyages. Translated by J. M. Cohen. New

York: Penguin Classics, 1992.

Works about Christopher Columbus

Hale, Edward Everett. Life of Christopher Columbus

from His Own Letters and Journals. IndyPublish,

2002.

Kneib, Martha. Christopher Columbus: Master Italian

Navigator in the Court of Spain. New York: Rosen

Publishing, 2003.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A

Life of Christopher Columbus. New York: MJF

Books, 1942.

comedy of manners (1600s–1700s)

The comedy of manners is a genre of drama that

was most popular in 17th- and 18th-century Eu-

rope and focused on human society and behavior.

Comedies of manners concentrate on how char-

acters conduct themselves in social situations. The

plays are usually satirical, because they show a so-

ciety or social group’s foibles and vices in order to

demonstrate how foolish the behavior is. The hall-

marks of a comedy of manners are stock social

stereotypes, such as the imperious matron; the

witty, high-spirited heroine; and the self-impor-

tant fool. The plots usually revolve around mis-

taken identities, thwarted young lovers in conflict

with status-conscious parents or guardians, and

convoluted plans to get money and/or position. Fi-

nally, while a comedy of manners can have enough

physical humor in it to border on

FARCE, it prima-

rily relies on witty repartee for most of its humor.

While one can argue that the plots and basic

characters were laid out in the early Roman come-

dies of Menander and Plautus, the genre is usually

associated with 17th-century France and England.

MOLIÈRE’s comedies poked fun at such social phe-

nomena as pretentious women in Les Précieuses

Ridicules (The Affected Young Ladies, 1659) and

possessive husbands in L’École des Femmes (The

School for Wives, 1662).

Molière’s plays were translated into English by

William Wycherley in the 1670s and, combined

with the English tradition of social comedy of Ben

JONSON, created the stylish, artificial Restoration

58 comedy of manners

sex comedies of the second half of the 17th cen-

tury. Plays such as Sir George Etherege’s The Man

of Mode (1676),Wycherley’s own The Country Wife

(1675), and William Congreve’s The Way of the

World (1700) were high points in an age that val-

ued cynical observations served in high style. A

century later, English playwrights such as Oliver

Goldsmith, with She Stoops to Conquer (1773), and

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with The School for

Scandal (1777), would revive the style with gentler

satire and more pointed morals. Comedies of

manners survived into the 19th century with the

witty comedies of Oscar Wilde, and many of their

conventions can be seen in Hollywood screwball

comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in con-

temporary situation comedies.

Works about the Comedy of Manners

Knutson, Harold C. The Triumph of Wit: Molière and

Restoration Comedy. Columbus: Ohio State Uni-

versity Press, 1968.

Palmer, John. The Comedy of Manners. New York:

Russell and Russell, 1962.

Sharma, Ram Chandra. Themes and Conventions in

The Comedy of Manners. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Li-

brary Editions, 1977.

Comenius, Johann Amos (Jan Ámos

Komensk´y)

(1592–1670)

theologian,

educator

Johann Amos Comenius was born in Nivnice,

Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. His

parents died when he was 12 years old. Four years

later, he was sent to the Brethren’s school at Prerov,

Moravia, and encouraged to pursue a career in the

Protestant ministry. In 1613 he attended the Uni-

versity of Heidelberg, where he was influenced by

the works of Francis BACON and the Protestant mil-

lennialists, who worked to achieve salvation on

Earth through science and good works.

The beginning of the Thirty Years’ War forced

Comenius, who was by this time a Protestant min-

ister, to go into hiding. While in hiding, his wife

and two children died of the plague. This tragedy,

along with the religious intolerance of the Austrian

rulers, led him to write the classic religious

ALLE-

GORY, The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise

of the Heart (1618), in which he voices his worldly

despair and spiritual consolation.

Six years later, Comenius moved to Leszno,

Poland, where he published his two famous educa-

tional texts, The Gates of Languages Unlocked

(1631) and The Great Didactic (1637). The first is a

Latin instructional text written in both Czech and

Latin. The idea of learning Latin through a com-

parison with the vernacular became very popular,

and Comenius’s book was translated into most Eu-

ropean and Asian languages. The Great Didactic is a

text on educational theory in which Comenius ad-

vocates full-time schooling for all children and the

teaching of native and European cultures.

In 1641 Comenius was invited to England to es-

tablish a school of social reform, but his plans were

interrupted by the outbreak of the English Civil

War. He then moved to Sweden, where he developed

a series of textbooks modeled on his educational

theory. When the Thirty Years’ War ended in 1648,

Comenius returned to Poland and was named a

bishop of the Brethren’s Unity Church in Leszno.

In 1652 he moved to Amsterdam, where he

spent the rest of his life writing and refining his

educational treatises. He is recognized for his in-

ternationalism and educational reforms that

shaped much of the modern system of education

in Germany.

English Versions of Works by Johann

Amos Comenius

Selections. Translated by Iris Urwin, with Introduc-

tion by Jean Piaget. Paris: UNESCO, 1957.

The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius. Translated

by M. W. Keatinge. London: A. and C. Black, 1921.

Works about Johann Amos Comenius

Murphy, Daniel. Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of

His Life and Work. Dublin: Irish Academic Press,

1995.

Comenius, Johann Amos 59

Sadler, John Edward. J. A. Comenius and the Concept

of Universal Education. London: Allen and Unwin,

1966.

Spinka, Matthew. John Amos Comenius: That Incom-

parable Moravian. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1943.

commedia dell’arte

Commedia dell’arte, the improvisational comic the-

ater featuring beloved characters like Harlequin and

Columbine, originated in Italy in the 1500s. It takes

its name from the Italian for “skilled comedy,” be-

cause it was performed by professional troupes, in

contrast to the learned and scripted commedia eru-

dita, performed by amateurs in learned academies.

Commedia dell’arte performances were based

on a scenario, or outline, of the plot, which was

placed backstage for the actors to consult. Few sce-

narios remain, however, because they were only

blueprints for the performance, though Flaminio

Scala, an actor with the Duke of Mantua’s troupe,

published a collection in 1611.

The characters, each of whom had a distinctive

mask or costume, included the foolish father Pan-

talone; the pedantic Dottore (Doctor) Graziano;

the thwarted young lovers Isabella and Lelio; the

bragging but cowardly soldier Captain Spavento;

the comical servants, both crafty (Brighella) and

dimwitted (Arlecchino or Harlequin); and the

saucy servant girl Columbine. The actors filled out

the scenario with their own improvised lines and

lazzi, or physical gags, which often developed into

long comic routines, and they had to be quick-wit-

ted to adapt to what their fellow actors were doing.

The origins of commedia dell’arte may lie in the

plays of Plautus and Terence, ancient Roman

FARCEs, and the comedy of medieval minstrels and

jesters. The first troupes to perform commedia del-

l’arte formed around 1550 and found patronage

at the courts of Venice and Mantua. They soon

began performing at royal courts in Germany,

England, and France.

Commedia dell’arte greatly influenced French

playwrights. MOLIÈRE and MARIVAUX, for example,

based many of the characters and plots in their

comedies on Italian originals, and

SHAKESPEARE

refers to the popularity of the Italian theater in

England in As You Like It.

Although commedia dell’arte declined after the

middle of the 18th century, its spirit lives on in

many classics of world literature and even in mod-

ern comedic performances, such as those by Char-

lie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers.

Works of Commedia dell’Arte

Scala, Flamminio. Scenarios of the Commedia del-

l’arte: Flamminio Scala’s Teatro delle favole rappre-

sentive. Translated by Henry F. Salerno. New York:

New York University Press, 1967.

Jonson, Ben. Valpone. Edited by Robert Watson. New

York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Works about Commedia dell’Arte

Heck, Thomas F. Commedia Dell’ Arte: A Guide to the

Primary and Secondary Literature. Lincoln, Neb.:

iUniverse, 2000.

Richards, Kenneth, and Laura Richards. The Comme-

dia dell’Arte: A Documentary History. Cambridge,

Mass.: Blackwell for the Shakespeare Head Press,

1990.

Cook, Ebenezer (ca. 1672–1732) poet,

satirist

Ebenezer Cook is best known for his 1708 politi-

cal satire, The Sot-weed Factor: or a Voyage to Mary-

land. A sot-weed factor is a tobacco agent, or

trader. The 26-page poem is a satirical treatment of

English views on colonial America through the

eyes of a downtrodden tobacco agent who has

come to America to make his fortune. The poem

depicts the early colonies as an unrelenting place,

where frauds and unsavory characters prey upon

the naïve. At the end of the poem, the tobacco

agent leaves America wishing never to see “this

Cruel, this inhospitable Shoar” again. The form

and style of the poem are modeled on Samuel But-

ler’s Hudibras, a celebrated 17th-century satire.

The work has received renewed attention in con-

60 commedia dell’arte

temporary times, serving as the inspiration for the

protagonist in John Barth’s comic picaresque

novel, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), in which Cook

plays the main character.

Cook is believed to have authored works pub-

lished under the names E. Cooke and E. C. Gent.

Several elegies are attributed to him, including an

elegy to Thomas Bradley (1727), an elegy on the

death of Nicholas Lowe (1728), and two elegies

honoring Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert and

Justice William Lock (1732).

Other significant works include the 1730 pub-

lication of Sotweed Redivivus; or, The Planters

Looking Glass by E. C. Gent. The Maryland Muse,

his longest work, was published in 1731 and is a

satire of Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion.

Cook’s works serve as a window into the life of

early America and the difficulties of new settlers

hoping to make their fortunes in commerce.

Though his work is satirical and certainly a carica-

ture at times, Cook’s insights remain of historical

significance to this day.

Works by Ebenezer Cook

Early Maryland Poetry: The Works of Ebenezer Cook.

Edited by Bernard C. Steiner. Baltimore, Md.:

Printed by John Murphy Company, 1900.

The Sot-weed Factor. London: Printed and sold by D.

Bragg, 1708; reprinted, New York, 1865.

Works about Ebenezer Cook

Coers, Donald Vernon. A Review of the Scholarship

on Ebenezer Cook and a Critical Assessment of His

Works. College Station: Texas A&M University,

University Microfilms, 1974.

Edward H. Cohen, Ebenezer Cooke: The Sot-Weed

Canon. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975.

Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473–1543)

scientist

After the collapse of the classical civilizations of

Greece and Rome, virtually no scientific work was

done in Europe for nearly 1,000 years. It wasn’t

until the 16th century, with the beginning of the

Scientific Revolution, that science once again be-

came a major force in Europe. One of the earliest

and most important figures of this period was

Nicolaus Copernicus, the Latinized form of his

name (Mikotaj Kopernik).

Copernicus was born on February 19, in the

Polish town of Torun. He was the youngest of four

children. His father, Mikolaj Koppernigk, was a

wealthy merchant whose peasant ancestors had

come from the Silesian village of Koperniki. His

mother, Barbara Watzenrode, came from a promi-

nent family. Her brother Lucas Watzenrode

adopted the Copernicus children after their fa-

ther’s death, which occurred when Nicolaus was 10

years old.

Copernicus enrolled at the University of

Krakow in 1491. Following the ideas of

HUMANISM,

the university offered a variety of courses in the

arts and sciences. Copernicus’s studies included

law, Latin, philosophy, and geography. The young

scholar bought a copy of Euclid’s work on geome-

try. He also began to use the name Copernicus, a

Latinized version of Koppernigk. In 1496 he trav-

eled to Italy to continue his studies. The next few

years saw him studying law and medicine at uni-

versities in Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara. He read

the works of Avicenna, Hippocrates, Galen, and

Aristotle. He also spent a year teaching mathemat-

ics in Rome.

Copernicus was a true

RENAISSANCE man, dis-

playing a wide range of interests and abilities not

only in his studies but also in his later occupations.

After 1506, when he returned from abroad, he

spent six years as a medical attendant and adviser

to Lucas Watzenrode. He took part in diplomatic

missions, practiced medicine, wrote treatises on

monetary reform, and performed the duties of a

church canon. He also translated into Latin the

Moral, Pastoral, and Amorous Letters of Theophy-

lactus Simocatta, a seventh-century Byzantine

writer. The translation, dedicated to Copernicus’s

uncle, appeared in print in 1509.

During all this time, Copernicus also developed

an intense interest in mathematics and astronomy.

By the beginning of the 16th century, astronomy

Copernicus, Nicolaus 61

had not advanced beyond what was known to the

ancient Greeks, and Copernicus read the astro-

nomical works of such ancient thinkers as Aristo-

tle and Ptolemy. Their view of the universe held

that the Earth was the center and that everything,

including the Sun, planets, and stars, rotated

around the Earth. This view was adopted as reli-

gious dogma by the Roman Catholic Church.

During many years of personal study, combin-

ing direct astronomical observation with intense

mathematical calculation, it gradually dawned on

Copernicus that the ancient view of the universe

was incorrect. As early as 1507, and in his hand-

written Little Commentary of 1514, he hypothe-

sized that the Earth rotated around the Sun, rather

than the other way around. This cosmological idea

had first been proposed by a Greek scientist,

Aristarchus of Samos, but had been rejected by his

fellow Greeks. Copernicus was the first modern

thinker to come to this conclusion, which became

known as the Copernican Theory.

In 1515 Copernicus began to write his greatest

work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On

the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), in sup-

port of his heliocentric theory. Being a very mod-

est and serene man, however, he was not

particularly eager to publish his findings. He was

encouraged to do so by his friend Georg Joachim

Rheticus, who shared his interests in mathematics

and astronomy. On the Revolutions was finally

published in 1543, a year that also saw the publi-

cation of

VESALIUS’S seminal work on anatomy.

Copernicus, old and ill, suffered a stroke that year.

According to legend, he died a few hours after see-

ing an advance copy of his book. On the Revolu-

tions summarizes Copernicus’s entire life work. It

begins with general arguments in favor of the idea

that the Earth moves around the Sun. It then ex-

plains how the heliocentric solar system looks and

uses this model to explain why the year has four

seasons. Subsequent sections discuss in more de-

tail the motions of the known planets—Earth,

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Coper-

nicus’s hypotheses involved fewer complicated

rules and celestial motions than previous astro-

nomical systems. More important, he based his

ideas not on abstract reasoning but on observa-

tions of the physical world around him.

Copernicus clearly knew that his theories

would be controversial. To make them seem less

radical and more authoritative, he supported them

not only with data drawn from his own observa-

tions, but also with quotations from classical au-

thors such as Cicero and Plutarch. Copernicus

notes passages in which these authors raised the

possibility that the Earth moved. “Taking occasion

thence,” he writes:

I too began to reflect upon the earth’s capacity

for motion. And though the idea appeared ab-

surd, yet I knew that others before me had been

allowed freedom to imagine what circles they

pleased in order to represent the phenomena of

the heavenly bodies. I therefore deemed that it

would be readily granted to me also.

In addition, Copernicus mentions that he has re-

ceived encouragement from two churchmen, and

he dedicates his work to Pope Paul III.

Large portions of European society did in fact

resist heliocentrism. Catholics as well as Protes-

tants like Martin LUTHER claimed that Coperni-

cus’s theories contradicted the Bible. The

Catholic Church persecuted a number of schol-

ars, including Giordano

BRUNO and Galileo

GALILEI, for writing that the Earth moved around

the Sun. On the Revolutions remained on the

Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books

from 1616 until 1820.

In his book Copernicus: The Founder of Modern

Astronomy, Angus Armitage notes that Copernicus’s

great contribution to astronomy lay not in his

originality but in his development of those

ideas into a systematic planetary theory . . .

which was to make possible the triumphs of

Kepler and Newton in the following century.

Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE emphasizes the as-

tronomer’s significance more forcefully: “Of all the

62 Copernicus, Nicolaus

discoveries and opinions proclaimed,” he writes,

“nothing surely has made such a deep impression

on the human mind as the science of Copernicus.”

English Versions of Works by Nicolaus

Copernicus

Complete Works, 4 vols. Edited by Pawel Czartoryski.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1972–92.

On the Revolutions: Nicholas Copernicus’ Complete

Works. Translated by Edward Rosen and edited by

Jerzy Dobrzycki. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1992.

Three Copernican Treatises. Translated by Edward

Rosen. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2004.

Works about Nicolaus Copernicus

Armitage, Angus. Copernicus: The Founder of Modern

Astronomy. New York and London: Thomas

Yoseloff, 1957.

Crowe, Ivan. Copernicus. Gloucestershire, U.K.: Tem-

pus Publishing, 2004.

Gingerich, Owen. The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the

Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. New York:

Walker, 2004.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution: Plane-

tary Astronomy in the Development of Western

Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1957.

Corneille, Pierre (1608–1684) dramatist

Pierre Corneille was born in Rouen, France, and

educated at the excellent Jesuit school there. Al-

though he won prizes for poetry during his school

years, he followed his father into the law, and

maintained his legal practice in Rouen for most of

his life. At the same time, he wrote the plays that

established his reputation as one of the three great

dramatists (with RACINE and MOLIÈRE) of France’s

classical century.

In 1629 a traveling theatrical troupe led by the

actor Montdory passed through Rouen. Corneille

showed Montdory a play he had written, the com-

edy Mélite. Montdory took it on, and when the

company performed it in Paris, it was a great

success. Corneille produced a succession of come-

dies and tragicomedies (plays that deal with seri-

ous themes but usually end happily) in the next

few years, most of them with Montdory and his

company in mind.

Corneille’s talent came to the attention of

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), the powerful

prime minister to France’s King Louis XIII

(1601–43; r. 1610–43). Richelieu invited Cor-

neille to join a group that became known as the

“Five Authors,” through whose efforts Richelieu

hoped to establish a great dramatic tradition in

France, based on the classical aesthetics of Aris-

totle. Richelieu would propose outlines of plays,

and the Five Authors would collaborate to realize

them. Corneille was involved in several joint

projects with the Five Authors during the years

from 1635 to 1638, but he withdrew from the

group, perhaps because he chafed at the lack of

artistic freedom it offered.

A project of his own, the tragicomedy Le Cid

(1637), was Corneille’s most spectacular success up

to that time. It is based on legends about an 11th-

century Spanish hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (ca.

1040–1099). In battles against the Arabs, who held

much of Spain at the time, Rodrigo earned the

Arab epithet of “Cid,” or lord. In the play, Rodrigue

and Chimène, two young nobles at the Spanish

court in Seville, are in love, but their hopes to

marry are dashed by a quarrel between their fa-

thers in which Chimène’s father, the count of Gor-

mas, slaps Rodrigue’s father. Honor demands that

Rodrigue challenge the count to a duel, and when

Rodrigue kills the older man, honor demands that

Chimène seek the death penalty for Rodrigue. Ro-

drigue responds by offering Chimène his sword so

that she can take her revenge on him herself, but

love restrains her. An attack by a Moorish army

provides an opportunity for Rodrigue to show

himself an indispensable hero. The king pardons

Rodrigue for the count’s death, and after a few

more twists in the plot Chimène is at last able to

give in to her love.

Audiences in Paris flocked to see Le Cid. Some

of Corneille’s rival playwrights were jealous of his

Corneille, Pierre 63

success and eager to find fault. A battle of

pamphlets, known as “the quarrel of Le Cid,”en-

sued. The pamphlets issued on both sides became

so vicious that Richelieu ordered a halt, but he

did allow the ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE to have the last

word with a document that tore the play apart on

both ethical and aesthetic grounds. The quarrel

was the first full discussion of the rules on which

French classical theater was based. Although au-

diences continued to vindicate Corneille’s choices

in The Cid, in subsequent plays Corneille, like

other playwrights of the period, observed Aristo-

tle’s UNITIES of dramatic action more closely and

made clearer genre distinctions. He wrote no

more tragicomedies.

Corneille continued to place his protagonists

in positions of emotional conflict in the three great

tragedies (see TRAGEDY) that followed. Two of

them, Horace (1640) and Cinna (1641), are set in

ancient Rome and involve conflicts between love,

family duty, and patriotism. In Polyeucte (1642) the

hero, an Armenian prince in the days of the

Roman Empire, is torn between his love of his wife

and the new Christian faith he has embraced.

These plays are the center of Corneille’s reputa-

tion today.

One of his most successful works is not a play

but a verse translation (1651–56) of The Imita-

tion of Christ by

THOMAS À KEMPIS. By the 1670s,

Molière and Racine, and even younger brother

Thomas Corneille (1625–1709), whose career as

a dramatist Corneille had helped substantially,

had eclipsed the older writer in the attention of

the public and of the royal patrons who allowed

the drama to flourish. As the scholar Vincent

Cheng remarks, “the age that idealized and un-

derstood the larger-than-life Cornelian hero

with noble passions and pride of self was no

more.”

An English Version of Works by

Pierre Corneille

The Cid/Cinna/The Theatrical Illusion. Translated

and with an introduction by John Cairncross.

New York: Penguin, 1975.

Works about Pierre Corneille

Carlin, Claire L. Pierre Corneille Revisited. Boston:

Twayne, 1999.

Goodkin, Richard E. Birth Marks: The Tragedy of Pri-

mogeniture in Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille,

and Jean Racine. Philadelphia: University of Penn-

sylvania Press, 2000.

Cortés, Hernán (1485–1547) chronicler,

explorer, conquistador

Hernán Cortés was the Spanish explorer and con-

quistador who conquered Montezuma’s Aztec Em-

pire and was responsible, in large part, for the

Spanish conquest of Mexico. He was born in

Medellín, Spain, and studied law at the University

of Salamanca. Eager for adventure, he abandoned

his law studies for trips abroad, and in 1504 un-

dertook the first of several voyages to the New

World. In 1519 he became captain-general of his

own armada and set sail for the Yucatán.

Between 1519 and 1526, Cortés wrote his Car-

tas de relación (Letters of Report), five long reports

addressed to Charles V in which he describes

Spanish operations in Mexico. The first letter, now

lost, has been replaced in editions of Cartas de

relación by report addressed to Holy Roman Em-

peror Charles V (King Charles I of Spain) in July of

1519 by the regent of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz,

relating Cortés’s arrival in Mexico. The second let-

ter, dated October 30, 1520, describes the entry of

Cortés and his men into the Mexican hinterland.

Carta III dates to May 15, 1522, and covers experi-

ences in Tlaxcalan territory. La quarta relación

(October 15, 1524) deals with Cortés’s Spanish

rival, Diego Velázquez, while the fifth letter, dis-

patched on September 3, 1526, relates the Hon-

duras expedition.

Cortés’s reports are considered models of their

kind, demonstrating a lucid, elegant prose and a

clear, concise, direct writing style. Though they

glorify his ruthless conquest, the letters exhibit

Cortés’s grasp of the complex issues surrounding

the Spanish invasion, as well as an appreciation for

detail in describing the splendor of Mexican civi-

64 Cortés, Hernán

lization. While Cortés expresses admiration for the

culture of the Mexican Indians, it is evident in his

writings that he understood their future only in

terms of political and cultural assimilation to the

European way of life. Nevertheless, Spanish chron-

icles like the letters of Cortés and the history of

Bernal DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO remain valuable sources

of information about the way of life of the peoples

of Mexico before the Conquest.

An English Version of Works by

Hernán Cortés

Letters From Mexico. Translated by Anthony Pagden.

New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001.

Works about Hernán Cortés

Collis, Maurice. Cortés and Montezuma. New York:

New Directions, 1999.

Gordon, Helen Heightsman. Voice of the Vanquished:

The Story of the Slave Marina and Hernán Cortés.

New York: University Editions, 1995.

Ramen, Fred. Hernán Cortés: The Conquest of Mexico

and the Aztec Empire. New York: Rosen Publish-

ing Group, 2003.

Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de

(Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecoeur)

(1735–1813) essayist

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur was raised by his

parents, Marie-Anne-Therese and Guillaume Jean

de Crèvecoeur, in Normandy, France. The rigorous

Jesuit school he attended required pupils to learn

Latin, French, mathematics, catechism, and ethics.

After graduating, he traveled to England, Canada,

and New York, supporting himself by working as a

surveyor and cartographer.

In 1769 he settled on a farm in New York with

his wife, Mehetable, and began to compose essays

about America and his experience as a farmer. His

desire to remain neutral in the debates about

Great Britain’s control of the colonies made life

difficult for him. He was imprisoned on suspicion

of serving as an American spy. Upon release, he

went to England, sold his essays, which he titled

Letters from an American Farmer (1782), and then

journeyed back to France. In 1783 he returned to

America and learned that his wife was dead and

his farm destroyed. Seven years later, he moved

back to France, where he continued living until

his death.

Letters from an American Farmer secured for

Crèvecoeur a place in literary history. The 12 let-

ters are composed by James, a fictional narrator,

and are directed to a European friend. In the

third and most frequently cited letter, Crève-

coeur’s narrator asks, “What . . . is the American,

this new man?” The American, he answers, is a

man who reaps the “rewards” of his own industry

and is “at liberty ...to follow the dictates” of his

conscience without governmental interference.

Other letters, especially those addressing issues

relating to slavery and the American Revolution,

are not so optimistic. Norman S. Grabo observes

that Letters“brilliantly bespoke a new and arrest-

ing voice in American letters,” and they “depicted

both the American dream and its brutal subver-

sive nightmare.”

Works by Crèvecoeur

Letters from an American Farmer. Edited by Susan

Manning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

More Letters from an American Farmer: An Edition of

the Essays in English Left Unpublished by Crève-

coeur. Edited by Dennis D. Moore. Athens: Uni-

versity of Georgia Press, 1995.

Works about Crèvecoeur

Allen, Gay Wilson, and Roger Asselineau. American

Farmer: The Life of St. John de Crèvecoeur. New

York: Penguin, 1990.

Philbrick, Thomas. St. John de Crèvecoeur. Farming-

ton Hills, Mich.: Gale Group, 1970.

Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la (Juana

Ramírez de Asbaje)

(1648–1695) poet,

playwright

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was born in the town of

San Miguel de Nepantla to a Creole mother and a

Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la 65

Spanish father. An extraordinarily gifted child, she

was able to read by age three, was composing verse

by age seven, and moved to Mexico City to be ed-

ucated in the court of Mancera at age eight.

Less for religious inclinations than for a desire

for peace, reflection, and the opportunity to write,

Sor Juana opted for a religious life, entering first a

Carmelite convent (1667) and later that of the

order of Saint Jerome. It was at this time that she

assumed the name Juana Inés de la Cruz.

She published her first book of poems in Madrid

in 1689. With this and other publications, Sor Juana

became famous throughout the Spanish-speaking

world, and prominent writers and public personal-

ities praised her work. Nevertheless, her prodigious

talents as well as her outspoken opinions regarding

the rights and roles of women also won her the an-

imosity of many peers and superiors. After a long

and difficult illness, she died alone in her convent,

a victim of the plague.

Besides occasional verse and villancicos, a

traditional folk verse form, Sor Juana wrote

philosophical reflections and satires. In addi-

tion, her love poems are to this day among the

best in the Spanish language. Her single greatest

work may be “Primer sueño” (ca. 1680), a long

poem with elements of ALLEGORY and rich sym-

bolism that owes part of its inspiration to the

Spanish writer Francisco de

QUEVEDO’s poem of

the same name.

Though Sor Juana’s plays and prose are also of a

very high quality, it is primarily for her poetry that

she is remembered. Her work shows not only a re-

markable mastery of verse forms, but also incredi-

ble variety and energy. After being neglected

during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Sor Juana

is now seen as one of the great poets of Mexico and

the Spanish language.

An English Version of Works by Sor Juana

Inés de la Cruz

Sor Juana’s Love Poems. Translated by Joan Larkin and

Jaime Manrique. New York: Painted Leaf Press,

1997.

A Work about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Flynn, Gerard. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. New York:

Twayne 1971.

cycle, miracle, mystery, and morality

plays

(1400s–1600s)

Four types of drama that emerged from the 14th

century to the 17th century were the cycle, miracle,

mystery, and morality plays. While these plays were

all founded on religious and secular thought, they

vary slightly in purpose, subject matter, theme, and

form of presentation.

Cycle plays, dramatized biblical stories of the

Old and New Testaments, were one of the most

important and popular forms of drama during the

late Middle Ages and into the RENAISSANCE.The

most well-known cycles are the Chester, York,

Wakefield (Townley), and N-Town plays. The plays

were performed sequentially, beginning with the

Fall of Lucifer or the Creation of Adam and Eve, and

closing with The Last Judgment. Written by clerics

and performed by trade guilds, such as the tanners,

tailors, and cooks and innkeepers guilds, the plays

involved participation by both church clergy and

laypersons. Such collaboration promoted the

spread of biblical stories to a wide, mostly secular

audience. Performances occurred out-of-doors on

pageant-wagons, and audiences traveled from

wagon to wagon to see a particular living story, or

wagons moved to meet the crowd.

The plays were linked thematically and typo-

logically. Recurring themes unite the individual

stories, such as the theme of obedience in Fall of

Lucifer and Abraham and Isaac, and Old Testament

stories anticipated New Testament stories. The play

of Abraham and Isaac, for example, with its em-

phasis on sacrifice, anticipates the later story of

Christ’s sacrifice for humankind.

Many of the cycle plays were written by well-

educated people, as can be seen in the plays attrib-

uted to the “Wakefield Master,” and they are valued

for their representation of early popular (as op-

posed to court) drama.

66 cycle, miracle, mystery, and morality plays