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Jean Racine

Jean Racine

Overview

Jean Racine (December 22, 1639 – April 21, 1699) was a French
France
France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...

 dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France
France
France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...

 (along with Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

 and 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...

), and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...

, though he did write one comedy
Comedy
Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...

.

Born in La Ferté-Milon
La Ferté-Milon
La Ferté-Milon is a commune in the department of Aisne in Picardie in northern FranceIn La Ferté-Milon stand the ruins of an unfinished castle, whose façade was 200 m long and 38 m high. The singular form of the tower walls was probably designed to resist cannons and protect the gate. The façade is...

 (Aisne
Aisne
Aisne is a department in the northern part of France named after the Aisne River.- History :Aisne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Île-de-France, Picardie, and Champagne.Most of the...

) on December 22, 1639, Racine was orphaned at the age of three or four and received a classical education courtesy of his grandmother, Marie des Moulins.
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Quotations

Derrière un voile, invisible et présente,J'étais de ce grand corps l'âme toute-puissante.

Behind a veil, unseen yet present,I was the forceful soul that moved this mighty body.

Vous êtes empereur, Seigneur, et vous pleurez!

You are Emperor, my lord, and yet you weep?

Mon unique espérance est dans mon désespoir.

My only hope lies in my despair.

Tout m'afflige et me nuit, et conspire à me nuire.

All afflicts and injures me, and conspires to my injury.

Ariane, ma soeur, de quelle amour blesséeVous mourûtes sur les bords où vous fûtes laissée.

Ariane, my sister, wounded by what love,You died on the shores where you were abandoned.

C'est toi qui l'as nommé.

You have named him, not I.

Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachée:C'est Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée.

It is no longer a passion hidden in my heart:It is Venus herself fastened to her prey.

L'innocence enfin n'a rien à redouter.

Innocence has nothing to dread.

Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses dégrés;Et jamais on n'a vu la timide innocencePasser subitement à l'extrême licence.

Crime, like virtue, has its degrees;And timid innocence was never knownTo blossom suddenly into extreme license.

Pour réparer des ans l'irréparable outrage.

To repair the irreparable ravages of time.
Encyclopedia

Jean Racine (December 22, 1639 – April 21, 1699) was a French
France
France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...

 dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th century France
France
France , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...

 (along with Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

 and 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...

), and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...

, though he did write one comedy
Comedy
Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...

.

Life


Born in La Ferté-Milon
La Ferté-Milon
La Ferté-Milon is a commune in the department of Aisne in Picardie in northern FranceIn La Ferté-Milon stand the ruins of an unfinished castle, whose façade was 200 m long and 38 m high. The singular form of the tower walls was probably designed to resist cannons and protect the gate. The façade is...

 (Aisne
Aisne
Aisne is a department in the northern part of France named after the Aisne River.- History :Aisne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Île-de-France, Picardie, and Champagne.Most of the...

) on December 22, 1639, Racine was orphaned at the age of three or four and received a classical education courtesy of his grandmother, Marie des Moulins. He was a graduate of the Petites écoles de Port-Royal
Petites écoles de Port-Royal
The Petites écoles de Port-Royal was the name given to a teaching system set up in 1637 by the intellectuals who gathered at Port-Royal-des-Champs in the middle of the 17th century at the height of the Jansenist controversy...

, a religious institution which would greatly influence other contemporary figures including Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant...

. Port-Royal was run by followers of the Jansenism
Jansenism
Jansenism was a branch of Catholic thought that arose in the frame of the Counter-Reformation and the aftermath of the Council of Trent . It emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination...

, a theology condemned as heretical by the French bishops and the Pope. Racine's interactions with the Jansenists in his years at this academy would have great influence over him for the rest of his life. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity...

 and the themes of Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman
Roman mythology
Roman mythology, or Latin mythology, refers to the mythological beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Ancient Rome. It can be considered as having two parts; One part, largely later and literary, consists of borrowings from Greek mythology...

 mythology
Mythology
Mythology is the study of myths and or of a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story;...

 would play large roles in his future works.
He was expected to study law at the College of Harcourt, but instead found himself drawn to a more artistic lifestyle. Experimenting with poetry yielded high praise from France's greatest literary critic, Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...

 with whom Racine would later become great friends (Boileau would often claim that he was behind the budding poet's work). He eventually took up residence in Paris where he became involved in theatrical circles.

His first play, Amasie, never reached the stage. On June 20, 1664, Racine's tragedy La Thébaïde ou les frères ennemis (The Thebans
The Thebans
The Thebans or The Theban Brothers is a tragedy in five acts by Jean Racine. His first dramatic work, it was first staged, without great success, on 20 June 1664 at the Petit-Bourbon. It enacts the combat and death of two young, twin brothers, Eteocles and Polynices...

 or the Enemy Brothers
) was produced by Molière's troupe at the Palais-Royal Theatre. The next year, Molière also put on Racine's second play, "Alexandre Le Grand
Alexandre le Grand
Alexandre le Grand is a tragedy in 5 acts and verse by Jean Racine. It was first produced on December 4, 1665 at the Palais Royal Theater in Paris. The subject of the play is the love of Alexander and the Indian princess Cleofile complicated by intrigues between her brother Taxilus and his ally...

". However, this play garnered such good feedback from the public that Racine secretly negotiated with a rival play company, the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to perform the play since they had a better reputation for performing tragedies. Thus, Alexandre premiered for the second time, by a different acting troupe, 11 days after its first showing. Molière could never forgive Racine for his betrayal, and Racine simply widened the rift between him and his former friend by seducing Molière's leading actress, Thérèse du Parc, into becoming his companion both professionally and personally. From this point on, all of Racine's secular plays were performed by the Hôtel de Bourgogne troupe.

Though both La Thébaide (1664) and its successor, Alexandre (1665), had classical themes, Racine was already entering into controversy and forced to field accusations that he was polluting the minds of his audiences. He broke all ties with Port-Royal, and proceeded with 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...

(1667), which told the story of Andromache
Andromache
In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled...

, widow of Hector
Hector
In Greek mythology, Hectōr , or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the son of Priam and Hecuba, a descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy, he is a prince of the royal house. He acts as leader of the Trojans...

, and her fate following the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

. He was by now acquiring many rivals, including 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...

 and his brother, Thomas Corneille
Thomas Corneille
Thomas Corneille was a French dramatist. He was the brother of Pierre Corneille.Born in Rouen nearly twenty years after his brother, the "great Corneille", Thomas's skill as a poet seems to have shown itself early. At the age of fifteen he composed a play in Latin which was performed by his...

. Tragedians often competed with alternative versions of the same plot: for example, Michel le Clerc
Michel Le Clerc
-Life:Studying under the Jesuits, he then set up home in Paris, where he became a lawyer to the parliament of Paris. Like his co-student Claude Boyer, he wrote tragedies and "pièces des circonstance" - in 1645 he produced his Virginie romaine the same year as Boyer produced his Porcie romaine. He...

 produced an Iphigénie
Iphigénie
Iphigénie is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18th 1674 as part of the fifth of the royal Divertissements de Versailles of Louis XIV to celebrate the conquest of...

in the same year as Racine (1674), and Jacques Pradon
Jacques Pradon
Jacques Pradon, often called Nicolas Pradon, was a French playwright. Early in his career he was helped by Pierre Corneille and was introduced to the salons at the Hôtel de Nevers and the Hôtel de Bouillon by Madame Deshoulières.Pradon is the author of eight tragedies: Pyrame et Thisbé ,...

 also wrote a play about Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...

(1677). The success of Pradon's work (the result of the activities of a claque
Claque
Claque is, in its origin, a term which refers to an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses. Members of a claque are called claqueurs....

) was one of the events which caused Racine to renounce his work as a dramatist at that time, even though his career up to this point was so successful that he was the first French author to live almost entirely on the money he earned from his writings. Others, including the historian W.H. Lewis, attribute his retirement from the theater to qualms of conscience.

However, one major incident which seems to have contributed to Racine's departure from public life was his implication in a court scandal of 1679. He got married at about this time to the pious Catherine de Romanet, and his religious beliefs and devotion to the Jansenist sect were revived. He and his wife eventually had two sons and five daughters. Around the time of his marriage and departure from the theater, Racine accepted a position as a royal historiographer in the court of King Louis XIV, alongside his friend Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...

. He kept this position in spite of the minor scandals he was involved in. In 1672 he was elected to the Académie française, eventually gaining much power over this organization. Two years later he was bestowed the title of "treasurer of France," and he was later distinguished as an "ordinary gentleman of the king" (1690) and then as a secretary of the king (1696). Because of his flourishing career in the court, Louis XIV provided for his widow and children after his death. When at last he returned to the theatre, it was at the request of Madame de Maintenon, morganatic second wife of King Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , popularly known as the Sun King , was King of France and of Navarre His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch.Louis began personally governing France after the death...

, with the moral fables, Esther
Esther (drama)
Esther is the name of a play in three acts written in 1689 by the French dramatist, Jean Racine. It premiered on January 26, 1689, performed by the pupils of St. Cyr, an educational institute for young girls of noble birth.-Later reception:...

(1689) and Athalie (1691), both of which were based on Old Testament
Old Testament
In Christianity, the Old Testament is the collection of books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the...

 stories and intended for performance by the pupils of the school of Saint-Cyr
Saint-Cyr
The toponym Saint-Cyr refers to the popular child-saint Saint Quiricus , whose following was strong in France because relics were brought back from Antioch by the 4th-century Bishop Saint Amator of Auxerre. It may refer to:...

.

Jean Racine died in 1699 from cancer of the liver. He requested to be buried in Port-Royal, but after Louis XIV had this site razed in 1710, his remains were moved to the St. Etienne-du-Mont church in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Style



The quality of Racine's poetry is perhaps his greatest contribution to French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as...

. His use of the alexandrine
Alexandrine
An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...

 poetic line is considered exceptional in its harmony, simplicity and elegance.

Racine's work faced many criticisms from his contemporaries. One was the lack of historic veracity in plays such as 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...

(1668) and Mithridate (1673). Racine was quick to point out that his greatest critics- his rival dramatists- were among the biggest offenders in this respect. Another major criticism levelled at him was the lack of incident in his tragedy, Bérénice
Bérénice
Bérénice is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. Bérénice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus.It was first performed in 1670...

(1670). Racine's response was that the greatest tragedy does not necessarily consist in bloodshed and death.

Criticism


As with any contributor to the Western Canon, Racine has been subjected to many generations of literary criticism. His works have evoked in audiences and critics a wide range of responses, ranging from reverence to revulsion. In his book Racine: A Study, Philip Butler of the University of Wisconsin broke the main criticisms of Racine down by century to best portray the almost constantly shifting perception of the playwright and his works.

17th century


In his own time, Racine found himself compared constantly with his contemporaries, especially the great 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...

. In his own plays, Racine sought to abandon the ornate and almost otherworldly intricacy that Corneille so favored. Audiences and critics were divided over the worth of Racine as an up and coming playwright. Audiences admired his return to simplicity and their ability to relate to his more human characters, while critics insisted on judging him according to the traditional standards of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...

 and his Italian commentators from which he tended to stray. Attitudes shifted, however, as Racine began to eclipse Corneille. In 1674 the highly respected poet and critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...

 (also known simply as "Boileau
Boileau
Boileau can refer to the following:Persons:*Boileau-Narcejac, pen name of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud, also known as Thomas Narcejac, French writers of police stories*Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, 17th century French writer...

") published his Art Poétique which deemed Racine's model of tragedy superior to that of Corneille. This erased all doubts as to Racine's abilities as a dramatist and established him as one of the period's great literary minds.

Butler describes this period as Racine's "apotheosis," his highest point of admiration. Racine's ascent to literary fame coincided with other prodigious cultural and political events in French history. This period saw the rise of literary giants like Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

, Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century....

, Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...

, and François de La Rochefoucauld
François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, prince de Marcillac , was a noted French author of maxims and memoirs, as well as an example of the accomplished 17th-century nobleman. He was born in Paris in the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time when the royal court oscillated between aiding the nobility and...

 as well as Louis Le Vau
Louis Le Vau
Louis Le Vau was a French Classical architect who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was born and died in Paris.He was responsible, with André Le Nôtre and Charles Le Brun, for the redesign of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. His later works included the Palace of Versailles and his collaboration...

's historic expansion of the Palace of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles, the Île-de-France region of France. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles....

, Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully , was a French composer of Italian birth, who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He became a French subject in 1661.-Biography:...

's revolution in Baroque
Baroque
Baroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...

 music, and most importantly, the ascension of Louis XIV to the throne of France.

Under Louis XIV's revolutionary reign, France rose up from a long period of civil discord (see the Fronde
Fronde
The Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisians mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....

, or 'Slingshot Rebellion') to new heights of international prominence. Political achievement coincided with cultural and gave birth to an evolution of France's national identity, known as l'esprit français. This new self perception acknowledged the superiority of all things French; the French believed France was home to the greatest king, the greatest armies, the greatest people, and, subsequently, the greatest culture. In this new national mindset, Racine and his work were practically deified, established as the perfect model of dramatic tragedy by which all other plays would be judged. Butler blames the consequential "withering" of French drama on Racine's idolized image, saying that such rigid adherence to one model eventually made all new French drama a stale imitation.

19th century


The French installation of Racine into the dramatic and literary pantheon evoked harsh criticism from many sources who argued against his 'perfection.' Germans like Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller [johan/joːhan krɪstɔf friːtʁɪç fɔn ʃɪləʁ/ʃɪlɐ] was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright...

 and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and polymath. Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust...

 dismissed Racine as höfliches Drama, or "courtly drama" too restricted by the etiquette and conventions of a royal court for the true expression of human passion. French critics, too, revolted. Racine came to be dismissed as merely "an historical document" that painted a picture only of 17th century French society and nothing else; there could be nothing new to say about him. However, as writers like Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a nineteenth century French poet, critic, and translator. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire's name has become a byword for literary and artistic decadence...

 and Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style...

 came onto the scene to soundly shake the foundations of French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as...

, conservative readers retreated to Racine for the nostalgia of his simplicity.

As Racine returned to prominence at home, his critics abroad remained hostile due mainly, Butler argues, to Francophobia
Francophobia
Francophobia, or Gallophobia, as well as Francophobe, are terms that refer to a dislike toward the government, culture, history, or people of France or the Francophonie. Its antonym is francophilia...

. The British were especially damning, preferring Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott to Racine, whom they dismissed as "didactic" and "commonplace." This did not trouble the French, however, as "Racine, La Fontaine, or generally speaking the chefs-d'œuvre de l'esprit humain could not be understood by foreigners."

20th century


The 20th century saw a renewed effort to rescue Racine and his works from the chiefly historical perspective to which he had been consigned. Critics called attention to the fact that plays such as Phèdre could be interpreted as realist drama, containing characters that were universal and that could appear in any time period. Other critics cast new light upon the underlying themes of violence and scandal that seem to pervade the plays, creating a new angle from which they could be examined. In general, people agreed that Racine would only be fully understood when removed from the context of the 18th century.

In his essay, The Theatre and Cruelty, Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...

 claimed that 'the misdeeds of the psychological theater descended from Racine have unaccustomed us to that immediate and violent action which the theater should possess' (p84).

21st century



At present, Racine is still widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. His work is still widely read and frequently performed. Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, essayist, and critic, best known as the author of À la recherche du temps perdu , a monumental work of twentieth-century fiction published in seven parts from 1913 to...

 developed a fondness for Racine at an early age, "whom he considered a brother and someone very much like himself..." — Marcel Proust: A Life, by Jean-Yves Tadié
Jean-Yves Tadié
Jean-Yves Tadié is a French writer, specializing in Marcel Proust. His 800-page biography of Proust was well-received, asserted by Edmund White in his own book on Proust to be the best work of its kind...

, 1996. Racine's influence can also be seen in A.S. Byatt's tetralogy ( The Virgin in the Garden 1978, Still Life 1985, Babel Tower 1997 and A Whistling Woman 2002). Byatt tells the story of Frederica Potter, an English young woman in the early 1950s (when she is first introduced), who is very appreciative of Racine, and specifically of Phedre.

Dramatic works

  • La Thébaïde (1664)
  • Alexandre le Grand
    Alexandre le Grand
    Alexandre le Grand is a tragedy in 5 acts and verse by Jean Racine. It was first produced on December 4, 1665 at the Palais Royal Theater in Paris. The subject of the play is the love of Alexander and the Indian princess Cleofile complicated by intrigues between her brother Taxilus and his ally...

     (1665)
  • 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...

     (1667)
  • Les Plaideurs (1668)
  • 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...

     (1669)
  • Bérénice
    Bérénice
    Bérénice is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. Bérénice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus.It was first performed in 1670...

     (1670)
  • Bajazet
    Bajazet (play)
    Bajazet is a tragedy by Jean Racine in five acts , in Alexandrian verse, first played at the Hotel de Bourgogne, on January 5, 1672, after Berenice, and before Mithridate. Like Aeschylus in The Persians, Racine took his subject from contemporary history, taking care to choose a far off location,...

     (1672)
  • Mithridate (1673)
  • Iphigénie
    Iphigénie
    Iphigénie is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18th 1674 as part of the fifth of the royal Divertissements de Versailles of Louis XIV to celebrate the conquest of...

     (1674)
  • Phèdre
    Phèdre
    Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...

     (1677)
  • Esther (drama)
    Esther (drama)
    Esther is the name of a play in three acts written in 1689 by the French dramatist, Jean Racine. It premiered on January 26, 1689, performed by the pupils of St. Cyr, an educational institute for young girls of noble birth.-Later reception:...

     (1689)
  • Athalie (1691)

External links




Sources

  • Roland Barthes
    Roland Barthes
    Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes's work extended over many fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism and post-structuralism.-Life:Roland...

     - Sur Racine
  • Georges Forestier - Jean Racine (Gallimard, 2006) (ISBN 2070755290)
  • Lewis, W.H. The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louix XIV'.' William Sloane Associates, 1953.
  • Jean Rohou - Jean Racine : entre sa carrière, son oeuvre et son dieu (Fayard, 1992)
  • Butler, John. "Racine: A Study." London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1974.
  • "Racine, Jean." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Nov. 2007 .
  • Antonin Artaud
    Antonin Artaud
    Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...

     - The Theater and Cruelty. In
    The Theater and Its Double. Trans. Mary Caroline Richards. Grove Press: New York. (1938/1958)