This hybridism, which has sometimes led to the belittling of Corneille to the level of a poet of observation and of comicality, has more often led, from another point of view, to his being increased in stature and importance, to his being belauded and acclaimed as possessing "romantic tendencies," or as a "French Shakespeare," although but "a Shakespeare in trammels." There is really nothing whatever in him of the romantic, in the conception, that is to say, and in the sentiment of life; and there is less than nothing in him of Shakespeare, whose work had its origins in a far wider and certainly a very different sphere of spiritual interests. But since "romanticism" and "Shakespeare" perhaps stand here simply for poetry, it must be admitted that he is a poet, who does not explain himself fully, or explains himself badly, without the liberty, the sympathy, the abandonment of self necessary for poetry. He harnesses his inspiration to an apparatus of actions and reactions, of parallelisms and of conventions, which may be well described as "trammels," when compared with poetry. But they are in any case trammels which he sets in his own way, trammels which he creates and fixes in his soul and are not imposed upon him by the rules, conventions and usages, which were in vogue at the time he wrote, as is erroneously maintained, coupled with lamentations as to the unfavorable period for the writing of poetry, which fell to his lot. What poet can be trammeled from without? The poet sets such obstacles aside, or he passes through them, or he goes round them, or he feigns to bow to them, or he does bow to them, but only in secondary matters that are almost indifferent. For this reason, disputes and doctrines as to the three unities, as to the characters of tragedy, as to the manner of obtaining the catharsis or purgation, have considerable importance for anyone investigating the history of aesthetic and critical ideas, of their formation, growth and progress, by means of struggles that seem to us now to be ridiculous, though they were once serious; but they have no importance whatever as an element in the judgment of a poem. Corneille did not rebel against the so-called rules, because he did not feel any need for rebellion; he accepted or accustomed himself to them, because, having treated tragedy mechanically, it suited him, or did him no harm, to take heed of the mechanical rules, laid down by custom and literary and theatrical precepts.