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Updated: May 31, 2025
Virgil's poetry is intended to be read, Racine's to be declaimed; and it is only in the theatre that one can experience to the full the potency of his art. In a sense we can know him in our library, just as we can hear the music of Mozart with silent eyes. But, when the strings begin, when the whole volume of that divine harmony engulfs us, how differently then we understand and feel!
Berenice was a duel between Corneille and Racine for the amusement of Madame Henriette. Racine bore away the bell from his illustrious rival, without much glory. Bajazet soon followed. "Here is Racine's piece," wrote Madame de Sevigne to her daughter in January, 1672; if I could send you La Champmesle, you would think it good, but without her, it loses half its worth.
The words of Esther were adapted from Racine's play of the same name, and it has been suggested that Pope was the author. Handel's residence at Canons gave rise to two legends about him which are still so often repeated that their absurdity must be mentioned here, although they have been known for many years to be baseless.
When Rochefoucault said that Boileau and Racine had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about their own poetry, it is evident that the observation should not have extended to Racine, however it might to Boileau. It was Racine's excessive sensibility which made him the finest dramatic reciter.
These lessons lasted three months, and at their end the Duke gave his portrait to his father's fellow-soldier, and copied beneath it four lines from Racine's Phedre, in which Hippolyte says to Theramene: "Having come to me with a sincere interest, You told to me my father's story; You know how my soul, attentive to your words, Kindled at the recital of his noble exploits."
The Duchesse de Lesiguieres, for a long time associated with the Archbishop of Paris, and known to live with that prelate like a miller with his wife, dared to say, in her salon that my presence at Racine's tragedy was, at the least, very useless, and the public having come there to see a debutante, certainly did not expect me.
We were all eyes and ears in spite of that, and nothing in the play of the tragic actresses Madame Duchesnois, Madame Paradol, and Madame Bourgoin ever escaped us. I can see and hear yet all Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, and Zaire, and Mahomet, and L'Orphelin de la Chine, and many more. But what we longed for most impatiently were Moliere's plays.
"I have a surprising facility in writing my verses," said the young tragic author ingenuously. "I want to teach you to write them with difficulty," answered Boileau, "and you have talent enough to learn before long." Andromaque was the result of this novel effort, and was Racine's real commencement. He was henceforth irrevocably committed to the theatrical cause.
The theatre at Madame Campan's was not much larger than our own; the dresses "magnificent beyond description"; the acting and the dancing infinitely too good for any but young ladies intended for the stage. The play was Racine's Esther, and it interested me the next day to read Madame de Sevigne's account of its representation by the young ladies of St.
The problem before a writer of a Chant Royal is to overcome certain technical difficulties of rhyme and rhythm; he performs his tour de force, the difficulties are overcome, and his task is accomplished. But Racine's problem was very different.
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