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Updated: May 31, 2025
Racine's poetry differs as much from Shakespeare's as some calm-flowing river of the plain from a turbulent mountain torrent. To the dwellers in the mountain the smooth river may seem at first unimpressive. But still waters run deep; and the proverb applies with peculiar truth to the poetry of Racine. Those ordinary words, that simple construction what can there be there to deserve our admiration?
The court now formally assenting, the facts were entered of record, and my brother Downright was requested to proceed with the defence. The counsel for the prisoner, like Dandin, in Racine's comedy of Les Plaideurs, was disposed to pass over the deluge, and to plunge instantly into the core of his subject.
In her modern plays, plays in prose, she is condemned to use only a few of the instruments of the orchestra: an actress must, in such parts, be conversational, and for how much beauty or variety is there room in modern conversation? But here she has Racine's verse, along with Racine's psychology, and the language has nothing more to offer the voice of a tragic actress.
Voltaire was able to make the transparency, but he never could light the candle; and the only result of his efforts was some sticky pieces of paper, cut into curious shapes, and roughly daubed with colour. To take only one instance, his diction is the very echo of Racine's.
In RACINE'S, the parts of Athalie and of Phedre in the tragedies of the same name, of Agrippine in Britannicus, of Clitemnestre in Iphigenie en Aulide, and of Roxane in Bajazet. In VOLTAIRE'S, those of Merope and Semiramis; and, lastly, that of Medee in the tragedy by LONGEPIERRE.
My noble friend would give a far longer term to Racine's Freres Ennemis than to Athalie, and to Moliere's Etourdi than to Tartuffe. Go to Spain. My noble friend would give a longer term to forgotten works of Cervantes, works which nobody now reads, than to Don Quixote. Go to Germany.
In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusaist.
Twice again did the Seigneur's weapon draw blood, once from the shoulder and once from the leg of his opponent, and the blood was flowing from each wound. After the second injury they stood panting for a moment. Now the outside world was shut out from Fournel's senses as it was from Louis Racine's.
Perhaps the play in which Racine's wonderful discrimination in the drawing of passionate character may be seen in its most striking light is Andromaque. Here there are four characters two men and two women all under the dominion of intense feeling, and each absolutely distinct.
Yet this very tragedy, in spite of its author's protestations, is nothing more than a rifacimento of Racine's drama, and rather infelicitous at that, though it must be admitted that Mendes' style is of classic purity, and some of his scenes are in a measure characterized by vivacity of action.
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