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Phaedra is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677. In Phaedra, Racine chose once more a subject from Greek mythology, already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets, notably by Euripides in Hippolytus and Seneca. In the absence of her royal husband Theseus, Phaedra ends by declaring her love to Hippolytus, Theseus' son from a previous marriage. Jean Racine; baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine, was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France (along with Molière and Corneille), and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing classically inspired plays such as Phèdre, Andromaque, and Athalie, a comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a muted tragedy, Esther, for the young.
Jean-Baptiste Racine was one of the three outstanding playwrights of France in the 17th century, along with Molière and Corneille. He is considered an important literary figure in the Western tradition.
Background
Racine was born at La Ferté-Milon, France, where he was baptized Jean-Baptiste Racine on December 22, 1639. He was the son of an official in the local tax office. His mother died in 1641 giving birth to a second child, the poet's sister Marie and in three years he lost his father. After their deaths, he came into the care of his grandparents. At the death of his grandfather in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, went to live in the convent of Port-Royal.
Education
Jean was nine years old when he was sent to a boarding house connected with the abbey of Port Royal, a stronghold of the Jansenists. The core of the Jansenist teaching was the idea of predestination - "grace," on which depends the salvation of the soul. In Port-Royal Racine received a magnificent Hellenistic education - at the same time he inherited from his Jansenist teachers a keen interest in the "sinful" movements of the soul and analistic of the hidden psychological states. He completed his education at the Collège d'Harcourt in Paris.
Racine wrote two tragedies, both refused by the theatrical troupes of the day and now lost. The first was written according to Molière's instructions, and it was first performed in 1664. Although it was indifferently received, Molière requested another play from Racine. His Alexandre (1665) was his first success in the theater.
Between the first performances of Alexandre and the first performances of Andromaque in 1667, Racine's way of life changed considerably. Apparently dissatisfied with Molière's production of his Alexandre, he secretly rehearsed the play with the actors of another troupe, who played Alexandre in competition with Molière in December 1665. The resulting theatrical scandal gave Racine the reputation of a devious and unscrupulous young man. As if to confirm this evil reputation, an ungrateful Racine also published a pamphlet against Jansenism, attacking his former teachers of Port-Royal.
He apparently wrote Andromaque for "La Du Parc" in which she played the title role. Through her, Racine came to know something of the shady side of court life. He subsequently was compromised with the dead La Du Parc and others in the infamous "poison affair," and may narrowly have escaped arrest. In any case, he took as his next mistress another actress, La Champmeslé. But during this period Racine also consolidated his reputation as the greatest playwright of his times, writing one comedy, Les Plaideurs (1668), and numerous tragedies for the Parisian stage.
In his succeeding tragedies Racine continued to explore passionate love and passionate jealousy. Although his numerous enemies attempted to conspire against the play Bérénice (1670) and although the elderly Corneille wrote a Tite et Bérénice to compete with it, Racine's play was a remarkable success, followed by Bajazet (1672), Mithridate (1673), Iphigénie (1674), and Phèdre (1677). Apparently based on a stolen copy of Racine's text, Pradon's Phèdre et Hippolyte opened in Paris only 2 days after Racine's play. The two works were the occasion of a bitter literary quarrel in which insulting sonnets and other writings were exchanged, but Racine's play eventually triumphed over its rival.
Racine has long been admired as one of the most perfect of French writers - that is, in another modern view, as the French writer who most successfully matches his poetic images to his psychology, his psychology to his plot, and his plot to the structure and neo-Aristotelian view of the tragedy, giving his plays a kind of total inner coherence unequaled in France's grand siècle. Yet in spite of Racine's genius - and almost as if he had written his sublime tragedies only to gain a place in society - he stopped writing tragedies after Phèdre. In October of 1677, he accepted a post as King Louis XIV's historiographer. At the same time, he announced his return to the Jansenist faith of his childhood.
As director of the French Academy, he eulogized his former bitter rival, Corneille, and published a new edition of his own works, from which he had removed remarks offensive to his enemies. These were Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691) - tragedies written on specifically Christian themes and without any love interest, intended to be presented by the young ladies of Saint-Cyr, a girls' establishment protected by Madame de Maintenon.
Racine died in 1699 from cancer of the liver. He requested burial in Port-Royal, but after Louis XIV had this site razed in 1710, his remains were moved to the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church in Paris.
Quotations:
“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
“A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.”
“The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.”
“In their opinion, a tragedy with so little plot could not conform with the rules of drama. I enquired whether they were complaining that they had found my play boring. I was told that none of them was bored, that they were often touched by it, and that they would go and see it again with pleasure. What more do they want?”
Personality
Racine was a man of arrogance, irritability and treachery. He was also consumed with ambition. All this explains the fierce hostility of contemporaries, and the brutal clashes that accompanied Racine throughout his creative life.
Connections
Racine was married to Catherine De Romanet from 1677 to 1699. He and his wife had two sons and five daughters.
Jean Racine: Life and Legend
This first biography of Racine in over half a century for an English-language readership also traces the impact of Racine over three centuries in England as well as France. The plays and their reception are reviewed, using contextual approaches as part of each phase of Racine’s life-story, with excerpts and quotations translated. Racine’s upbringing and work as poet and historiographer are related to the France of Louis XIV, to audiences and to a