Author Description

A remarkable Hellenist, Jean Racine is distinguished from all his contemporaries, and Corneille in particular, by the incessant return to Greek tragedy. It is by translating Aristotle, by annotating the Athenian plays and by adapting Euripides on stage, that he finds the secret of the "tragic hero", neither quite guilty nor quite innocent. By jostling the dramaturgical codes of the time, Racine will make his discovery the symbol of a "revolution" in the art of making tragedies. The book proposes to reconstruct the evolution of this "Racinian revolution", exploring its Greek origin and its most explicit manifestations, namely the four pieces inspired by Euripides: The Thebaid, Andromache, Iphigenia and Phedre. The cross-reading of all the sources makes it possible to decode the Racinian palimpsest by letting emerge the crucial role played by the underlying Euripides text. Yet, true chameleon, Jean Racine will not hesitate to sacrifice his Athenian blower and his own revolution on the altar of success.--Droz.