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  • Original research article
  • December 3, 2025
  • Open access

Mélite and Chimène: the first actresses of Pierre Corneille’s theater

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Abstract

This article is dedicated to the history of French theater in the first half of the 17th century: a period marking the establishment of national drama and a national acting school, including the profession of actress. Key productions of early dramatic works by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), the founder of French classicist dramaturgy, are examined with the aim of revealing the specific characteristics of the female roles he created and the hypothetical ways these roles might have been embodied on stage by the first professional actresses, whose biographies are extremely challenging to study due to the lack of reliable factual data. The creation of extraordinary, profound female characters represents one of Corneille’s breakthroughs as a playwright, and their reception by the author’s contemporaries, readers, and audiences remains a significant point of debate in his work. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that, for the first time in Russian theater studies, the great playwright’s works are analyzed from the perspective of their stage realization, in conjunction with the work of France’s very first recognized actresses; furthermore, previously unknown data in Russian theater scholarship regarding the performing arts of the early classicism period are presented. As a result of the study, through a comparative analysis of rare documentary evidence concerning the lives and careers of the actresses La Le Noir and La Villiers along with dramaturgical and theoretical texts and iconographic materials, a theatrical “reconstruction” has been attempted for the roles they played in the initial productions of Corneille’s comedy “Mélite” (1629-1630) and tragicomedy “Le Cid” (1636-1637).

Research materials

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Author information

Inna Anatolievna Nekrasova

Dr

Russian State Institute of Performing Arts, St. Petersburg

About this article

Publication history

  • Received: November 7, 2025.
  • Published: December 3, 2025.

Keywords

  • французский театр XVII века
  • актриса Ленуар
  • актриса Вилье
  • комедия «Мелита» П. Корнеля
  • трагикомедия «Сид» П. Корнеля
  • French theater of the 17th century
  • actress La Le Noir
  • actress La Villiers
  • comedy “Mélite” by Pierre Corneille
  • tragicomedy “Le Cid” by Pierre Corneille

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© 2025 The Author(s)
© 2025 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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