Jean Racine baptismal name
Jean-Baptiste Racine (22 December 163921 April 1699), was a
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(along with
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
and
CorneillePierre 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
tragedianTragedy 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...
, producing such 'examples of neoclassical perfection' as
PhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
,
AndromaqueAndromaque 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
AthalieAthalie is the final tragedy of Jean Racine, and has been described as the masterpiece of 'one of the greatest literary artists known' and the 'ripest work' of Racine's genius...
, although he did write one comedy,
Les PlaideursLes Plaideurs, or the Litigants, written in 1668, is a comedy in three acts with respectively 8, 14, and 4 scenes in Alexandrine verse by Jean Racine. This is the only comedy written by Racine. It was inspired by The Wasps by Aristophanes, but he withdrew all political significance...
, and a muted tragedy,
EstherEsther 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 the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, an educational institute for young girls of noble birth...
, for the young.
Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic
alexandrineAn 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...
; his verse is renowned for elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what
Robert LowellRobert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
described as a 'diamond-edge', and the 'glory of its hard, electric rage'.
