I am surprised at how easy this was to read. After reading little bits on my commute, I sat down and finished it in a day. Shame colors Phaedra’s life and blinds her completely to any solution other than death. She is not a reasonable person at any point until the very end when she has seen the cons...
This is apparently Racine's last play before he gave up the theatre scene to return to a religious life within the Jansenist sect. For those who don't know what a Jansenist is (and that would probably include most of us) then picture a god who is mean, nasty, and smacks you over the head with a base...
Greek families! Histrionics, rash reaction instead of considered response, inability to control emotion. Tragedy.I don't know much about this play: what was Racine's source? It feels very Classical Greek and very Ted Hughes and not really French at all in this version. The language is not as extreme...
Racine tries his hand with different settings. He sets his tragedies in Rome (Britannicus and Berenice), the fall of Homeric Troy (Andromache), Greek mythology (Phedra) and the Old Testament (Athaliah). All of the plays take place within a short time and the plots center on a single conflict. Wit...
Racine amps up the pathos from Euripides’ version of the play. Phedra transforms from Grecian homewrecker to a French victim of amour. Her forbidden love is the product of a cruel Venus. The responsibility for Hippolytus’ death shifts to her over protective nurse, Oenone. Phedra suffers as a pow...
Mithridate, the 7th of Racine's plays, is probably my favorite so far. As most of his other tragedies it draws upon the conflicting internal emotions of the characters. The tragedy has also survived as a (sadly) rarely-performed opera seria by Mozart.
When is one guilty of something, when one commits the reprehensible deed, and only one knows it, or when it is made known to others?Phèdre thinks that the latter case is a great deal worse, worse even than death:je meurs pour ne point faire un aveu si funesteje n’en mourrai plus, j’en mourrai plus c...
I loved this. Racine makes one big change from Euripides: he blames Phedre's false accusation mostly (though not wholly) on her nurse, instead of on her. Coincidentally, that's the one thing that really stuck out for me in the original: I found Phedre's final accusation jarring, unearned and unexp...
The fiction I've been reading these days has been pretty disappointing. A perfect time to catch up with the ancient Greek (by way of France) myth of Phèdre, who's unfortunate enough to fall madly in love with her own stepson - a misogynist prat if there ever was one. Bonus points for the cover which...
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