Jean Racine

"Andromaque" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Alexandre le Grand" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"B r nice" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Mithridate" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Ph dre" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Bajazet" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Britannicus" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"Iphig nie" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

"La Th ba de" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

Alexandre le Grand est une trag die en cinq actes (comportant respectivement 3, 5, 7, 5 et 3 sc nes) et en vers (1548 alexandrins) de Jean Racine. Elle fut cr e le 4 d cembre 1665 au Th tre du Palais-Royal Paris. La trag die a pour sujet les amours d'Alexandre et de Cl ofile, ainsi que la rivalit entre Porus et Taxile pour l'amour d'Axiane. Racine, dans un souci de r alisme historique, a principalement fond son intrigue sur des l ments d crits dans le huiti me livre de Quinte-Curce. Notons qu'au travers du personnage d'Alexandre auquel Louis XIV aimait tre compar , c'est le Roi-Soleil lui-m me qui est c l br .

La Th ba de ou les Fr res ennemis est une trag die en cinq actes (comportant respectivement 6, 4, 6, 3 et 6 sc nes) et en vers (1516 alexandrins) de Jean Racine (la premi re de l'auteur) repr sent e, sans grand succ s, le 20 juin 1664 au Palais-Royal. Elle a pour sujet le combat et la mort des deux jeunes fils d'OEdipe, ainsi que celle de leur soeur Antigone. Ce sujet avait d j occup bien des auteurs avant Racine. Ainsi, ce jeune dramaturge encore assez inexp riment s'inspire notamment de: l'Antigone de Sophocle, des Ph niciennes d'Euripide, mais surtout de l'Antigone de Rotrou ainsi que de la facture des trag dies de Corneille. Il est galement fort probable que pour cette premi re pi ce, Moli re, par qui la pi ce devait tre jou e, ait contribu sa r daction. t ocle et Polynice, les deux fr res ennemis, se combattent avec fureur, malgr les supplications de leur m re Jocaste et de leur soeur Antigone, malgr le noble d vouement de leurs deux cousins, M n c e et H mon, fils de Cr on. Tous ces personnages sans exception sont tu s, se tuent ou meurent de douleur au cours de la pi ce. Leurs caract res sont encore assez faiblement dessin s: t ocle et Polynice sont d'une violence monotone, Jocaste lasse par ses d clamations plus qu'elle ne touche, Cr on est un tra tre bien noir et bien cynique. Pourtant les beaux vers ne sont pas rares dans cette pi ce, qui fut le coup d'essai, encore h sitant, d'un grand po te.

"Iphig nie en Aulide" de Jean Racine. Dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

This is the third volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays—only the third time such a project has been undertaken. For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has rendered these plays in the verse form that Racine might well have used had he been English: namely, the “heroic” couplet. Argent has exploited the couplet’s compressed power and flexibility to produce a work of English literature, a verse drama as gripping in English as Racine’s is in French. Complementing the translation are the illuminating Discussion, intended as much to provoke discussion as to provide it, and the extensive Notes and Commentary, which offer their own fresh and thought-provoking insights. In Iphigenia, his ninth play, Racine returns to Greek myth for the first time since Andromache. To Euripides’s version of the tale he adds a love interest between Iphigenia and Achilles. And dissatisfied with the earlier resolutions of the Iphigenia myth (her actual death or her eleventh-hour rescue by a dea ex machina), Racine creates a wholly original character, Eriphyle, who, in addition to providing an intriguing new denouement, serves the dual dramatic purpose of triangulating the love interest and galvanizing the wholesome “family values” of this play by a jolt of supercharged passion.

"Les Plaideurs" de Jean Racine. Jean Racine, dramaturge, po te et historiographe fran ais (1639-1699).

As Voltaire famously opined, Athaliah, Racine’s last play, is “perhaps the greatest masterwork of the human spirit.” Its formidable antagonists, Athaliah, queen of Judah, and Jehoiada, high priest of the temple of Jerusalem, are engaged in a deadly struggle for dominion: she, fiercely determined to maintain her throne and exterminate the detested race of David; he, no less fiercely determined to overthrow this heathen queen and enthrone the orphan Joash, the scion of the house of David, whom Athaliah believes she slew as an infant ten years earlier. This boy represents the sole hope for the survival of the royal race from which is to spring the Christ. But in this play, even God is more about hate and retribution than about love and mercy. This is the fourth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays—only the third time such a project has been undertaken. For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has rendered these plays in the verse form that Racine might well have used had he been English: namely, the “heroic” couplet. Argent has exploited the couplet’s compressed power and flexibility to produce a work of English literature, a verse drama as gripping in English as Racine’s is in French. Complementing the translation are the illuminating Discussion, intended as much to provoke discussion as to provide it, and the extensive Notes and Commentary, which offer their own fresh and thought-provoking insights.