Orphaned at an early age,Jean
Racine (1639-99) was given a strict Jansenist upbringing
and a superb education. He decided against entering the
Church, and between 1664
and 1677 wrote some of the greatest plays in the French
language. Disappointed with the reception of Phèdre,
he married and retired from the stage, returning to write
the religious dramas Esther(1689)
and Athalie
(1691), both masterpieces. Racine's plays are as complex
as their author. With a character described as voluptuous,
uneasy and jealous, Jean Racine was an ambitious courtier,
an astute business man, and a frequenter of innumerable
actresses. But he was also a childhood believer in the Jansenist
doctrine that man is a miserable creature saved only by
God's grace.
Classics and the stage
Jean
Racine was steeped in the ancient
world, which was real and moving to him, as indeed
it was to anyone of good education in the 17th-19th centuries.
To be popular, Baroque plays added pagan
mythology, oriental
splendour, dramatic
events in history, but an overriding concern was structure.
Plays
observed Aristotle's
unities of place, time and action. But where Corneille
expressed heroic sentiments in noble oratory, Racine's restrained,
polished but always appropriate language
depicted man's ferocious passions, savagery and imprudence.
Classicism,
with its balance
and wholeness. was retained, with a very correct and
restricted vocabulary, but given an unforgettable force.
Classical approaches today
If somewhat disregarded by the popular press,
classical literature, painting
and theatre are
still being practised. Not many will want to return
to the pedagogical
exercise of translating from Latin or Greek to English, and
then back again, though this was how Racine and other great
poets came to love the classics and find a grammar for expressing
what is universal
in human nature. Jean
Racine went beyond the ancient myths in devising new terrors
for his characters, but his language remained miraculously
natural. Modernism takes great liberties with expression,
as with social decorum, but Racine's example may explain why
the classics have never
died out, placing an alternative vision before artists
in the 20th
century, even in the popular
arena.
Books on Jean Racine and classicism
Bibliographies are given in the French Poetry section of
the The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Particularly useful may be P. Butler's Racine: A Study
(1974), G. Brereton's Racine: A Critical Biography
(1973) and J. Lapp's Aspects of Racinian Tragedy (1955).
French classical verse
is built on the hexameter, which relies on a syllabic subtleties
that escape English ears. Try On Reading French Verse
by R. Lewis (1982) or French Verse-Art A Study by C.
Scott (1980) to develop appreciation: it'll pay dividends
for reading any French poetry.
Books, tapes
and CDs can
help. If you've forgotten your school French, then there exist
many courses
and learning centres.
Students of French literature may find these sources useful:
NASSFCL,
CCDSTSI and
French Library.
