Jean Racine

Lore & Background

Racine was born on 21 December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon (Aisne), in the province of Picardy in northern France. Orphaned by the age of four (his mother died in 1641 and his father in 1643), 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 and took her grandson with her. He received a classical education at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal, a religious institution run by followers of Jansenism. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the classics and the themes of Greek and Roman mythology would play large roles in his future works. He was expected to study law at the Collège d'Harcourt in Paris, but instead found himself drawn to a more artistic lifestyle. Experimenting with poetry drew high praise from France's greatest literary critic, Nicolas Boileau, with whom Racine would later become great friends. His first play, *Amasie*, never reached the stage. On 20 June 1664 Racine's tragedy *La Thébaïde ou les frères ennemis* was produced by Molière's troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, in Paris. The following year, Molière also put on Racine's second play, *Alexandre le Grand*. However, this play garnered such good feedback from the public that Racine secretly negotiated with a rival play company, the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to perform the play – since they had a better reputation for performing tragedies. Molière could never forgive Racine for this betrayal, and Racine simply widened the rift by seducing Molière's leading actress, Thérèse du Parc, into becoming his companion both professionally and personally. Though both *La Thébaïde* (1664) and its successor, *Alexandre* (1665), had classical themes, Racine was already entering into controversy. He broke all ties with Port-Royal, and proceeded with *Andromaque* (1667). Amongst his rivals were Pierre Corneille and his brother, Thomas Corneille. The success of Jacques Pradon's work on Phèdre (1677) was one of the events which caused Racine to renounce his work as a dramatist at that time, even though his career up to this point was so successful that he was the first French author to live almost entirely on the money he earned from his writings. Others, including the historian Warren Lewis, attribute his retirement from the theater to qualms of conscience. One major incident that seems to have contributed to Racine's departure from public life was his implication in a court scandal of 1679. He got married at about this time to the pious Catherine de Romanet, and his religious beliefs and devotion to the Jansenist sect were revived. He and his wife eventually had two sons and five daughters. Around the time of his marriage and departure from the theatre, Racine accepted a position as a royal historiographer in the court of King Louis XIV, alongside his friend Boileau. In 1672 he was elected to the Académie française. Two years later he was given the title of "treasurer of France" and he was later distinguished as an "ordinary gentleman of the king" (1690) and then as a secretary of the king (1696). When at last he returned to the theatre it was at the request of Madame de Maintenon, morganatic second wife of King Louis XIV, with the moral fables, *Esther* (1689) and *Athalie* (1691), both based on Old Testament stories and intended for performance by the pupils of the school of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis in Saint-Cyr. Jean 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.

Reader's Guide

Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic (12 syllable) French alexandrine. His writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what American poet Robert Lowell described as a "diamond-edge", and the "glory of its hard, electric rage". Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage. Racine restricts his vocabulary to 2500 words. He rules out all workaday expressions since, although the Greeks could call a spade a spade, he does not believe that this is possible in Latin or French. The classical unities are strictly observed, for only the final stage of a prolonged crisis is described. The number of characters, all of them royal, is kept down to the barest minimum. Action on stage is all but eliminated. The mangled Hippolyte is not brought back, as is the Hippolytus of Euripides. The one exception to this is that Atalide stabs herself before the audience in *Bajazet*; but this is acceptable in a play conspicuous for its savagery and Oriental colour. Tragedy shows how men fall from prosperity to disaster. The higher the position from which the hero falls, the greater is the tragedy. Except for the confidants, of whom Narcisse (in *Britannicus*) and Œnone (in *Phèdre*) are the most significant, Racine describes the fate of kings, queens, princes and princesses, liberated from the constricting pressures of everyday life and able to speak and act without inhibition. Racine's work faced many criticisms from his contemporaries. One was the lack of historic veracity in plays such as *Britannicus* (1669) and *Mithridate* (1673). Racine was quick to point out that his greatest critics – his rival dramatists – were among the biggest offenders in this respect. Another major criticism levelled at him was the lack of incident in his tragedy *Bérénice* (1670). Racine's response was that the greatest tragedy does not necessarily consist in bloodshed and death. Racine is often said to have been deeply influenced by the Jansenist sense of fatalism. However, the link between Racine's tragedy and Jansenism has been disputed on multiple grounds; for example, Racine himself denied any connection to Jansenism. As a Christian, Racine could no longer assume, as did Æschylus and Sophocles, that God is merciless in leading men to a doom which they do not foresee. Instead, destiny becomes (at least, in the secular plays) the uncontrollable frenzy of unrequited love.

Did You Know?

• Racine was orphaned by the age of four—his mother died in 1641 and his father in 1643.
• He was the first French author to live almost entirely on the money he earned from his writings.
• Racine secretly moved his second play, *Alexandre le Grand*, to a rival theatre company just eleven days after its first showing, betraying Molière.
• He was elected to the Académie française in 1672 and later held titles including 'treasurer of France' (1674) and 'secretary of the king' (1696).
• After his death, his remains were moved from Port-Royal to the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church in Paris after Louis XIV had the original burial site razed in 1710.