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Updated: May 31, 2025
His operatic version of Racine's "Iphigènie en Aulide" called forth unbounded enthusiasm in the French metropolis directly after his arrival, and led to the warfare with the brilliant Italian Piccini, which was as hot as any Wagner controversy. The homage of all time is due this man of genius for the splendid courage with which he attacked shams.
Racine's last two pieces belong, as is well known, to a very different epoch of his life: they were both written at the same instigation; but are extremely dissimilar to each other. Esther scarcely deserves the name of a tragedy; written for the entertainment of well-bred young women in a pious seminary, it does not rise much higher than its purpose. It had, however, an astonishing success.
But it is a little difficult to make certain of the precise nature of Mr. Bailey's criticism. When he speaks of Racine's vision not including 'the whole of life, when he declares that Racine cannot be reckoned as one of the 'world-poets, he seems to be taking somewhat different ground and discussing a more general question.
But at the final revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he thought his conscience, or rather his vanity, compromised, and quitted France, although the King offered to allow him a chaplain of his communion, and a dispensation from all the oaths, to Petitot himself, to Boyer, his brother-in-law, and the chaplain whom they had retained with them. Lovers' Vows. The Body-guards. Racine's Phedre. The Pit.
Racine's Alexander is certainly not the Alexander of history; but if under this name we imagine to ourselves the great Conde, the whole will appear tolerably natural. And who does not suppose that Louis XIV. and the Duchess de la Valliere are represented under the names Titus and Berenice? The poet has himself flatteringly alluded to his sovereign.
Every day the king, at three o'clock, proceeded to the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and, taking a seat in an arm-chair, sat in a reclining posture, sometimes silently watching the progress of her tapestry-work, and again engaged in quiet conversation. Occasionally some of Racine's tragedies were read.
"What can you expect, my dear fellow? it is not Racine's or Moliere's, but La Feuillade's; and a great lord cannot rhyme like a beggarly poet." "It is very unfortunate, though, that you only remember the termination." "Stay, stay, I have just recollected the beginning of the second couplet." "Why, there's the birdcage, with a pretty pair, The charming Montalais, and..."
Now it is clear that the great danger lying before a dramatist who employs these methods is the danger of dullness. Unity of tone is an excellent thing, but if the tone is a tedious one, it is better to avoid it. Unfortunately Racine's successors in Classical Tragedy did not realize this truth.
On the other hand, they always left the characters as they received them from tradition and an earlier fiction, by means of which the cunning of Ulysses, the wisdom of Nestor, and the wrath of Achilles, had almost become proverbial. Horace particularly insists on the rule. But how unlike is the Achilles of Racine's Iphigenia to the Achilles of Homer!
He next visited New Orleans and acquired such facility in speaking French that he played parts in French plays more than acceptably, and distinguished himself by acting Orestes in Racine's "Andromaque," to the delight of the French-speaking population. His accent is said to have been remarkable for its purity.
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