Bérénice
Encyclopedia
Berenice is a five-act tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 by the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 17th-century playwright Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

. Berenice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...

, Andromaque
Andromaque
Andromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thérèse, by the royal company of actors, called "les Grands...

and Britannicus
Britannicus (play)
Britannicus is a tragic play by the French dramatist Jean Racine.The play, produced in 1669, was the first time Racine had tried his hand at depicting Roman history. The tale of moral choice takes as its subject Britannicus, the son of the Roman emperor Claudius, and heir to the imperial throne...

.

It was first performed in 1670. Racine seems to have chosen the subject in competition with Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

, who was working on his drama Tite et Bérénice
Tite et Bérénice
Tite et Bérénice is a tragedy by the 17th-century French playwright Pierre Corneille.It was first performed in 1670, the same year as the more famous tragedy on the same theme written by Corneille's rival Jean Racine, Bérénice....

at the same time. The subject was taken from the Roman historian Suetonius
Lives of the Twelve Caesars
De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...

, who recounts the story of the Roman emperor Titus
Titus
Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....

 and Berenice of Cilicia
Berenice of Cilicia
Berenice of Cilicia, also known as Julia Berenice and sometimes spelled Bernice , was a Jewish client queen of the Roman Empire during the second half of the 1st century. Berenice was a member of the Herodian Dynasty, who ruled the Roman province of Judaea between 39 BC and 92 AD...

, the sister of Agrippa II
Agrippa II
Agrippa II , son of Agrippa I, and like him originally named Marcus Julius Agrippa, was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great, thus last of the Herodians. He was the brother of Berenice, Mariamne, and Drusilla...

. Suetonius wrote a single sentence on the affair: "Titus reginam Berenicen, cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur, statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam." In his preface, Racine translates this as "Titus, who passionately loved Berenice and who was widely thought to have promised to marry her, sent her from Rome, in spite of himself and in spite of herself, in the early days of his empire."

Characters

  • Titus - the emperor of Rome
  • Bérénice - the queen of Palestine
    Palestine
    Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

  • Antiochus - the king of Comagène
  • Paulin - a confident of Titus
  • Arsace - a confident of Antiochus
  • Phénice - a confident of Bérénice
  • Rutile - a Roman
  • Servants, etc.

Plot summary

Because Titus' father, Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...

, has died, everyone assumes that Titus will now be free to marry his beloved Bérénice, queen of Palestine. Madly in love with Bérénice, Antiochus plans to flee Rome rather than face her marriage with his friend Titus. However, Titus has been listening to public opinion about the prospects of his marriage with a foreign queen, and the Romans find this match undesirable. Titus chooses his duty to Rome over his love for Bérénice and sends Antiochus to tell Bérénice the news. Knowing that Antiochus is Titus' rival, Bérénice refuses to believe Antiochus. However, Titus confirms that he will not marry her. Titus begs her to stay but she refuses both Antiochus and Titus. She and Antiochus leave Rome separately, and Titus remains behind to rule his empire.

Analysis

The tragic situation results from two irreconcilable demands. Titus cannot sacrifice his mission as the head of Rome for his passion for Berenice. The drama could have been based on events which conspire to separate the lovers, but Racine chose rather to eliminate all events that could overshadow the one action that he retains: the announcement by Titus that he is leaving her. He has in fact already made his decision before the play begins, and all that remains is for him to announce it to her and for her to accept it. Their love for each other is never in doubt, there is never any personal danger, nothing distracts the attention of the audience. The great art of Racine is to make something out of nothing, as he says himself in the preface to the play. The tension reaches its climax at the end of the fourth act, when Titus explains his dilemma, and Berenice refuses his decision. In the fifth act, they both come to terms with their duty; contrary to other plays by the same author, neither seeks escape through death.

External links

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