Jean Racine facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jean Racine
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Portrait of Racine
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| Born | Jean-Baptiste Racine 21 December 1639 La Ferté-Milon, Picardy, France |
| Died | 21 April 1699 (aged 59) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Dramatist |
| Period | Seventeenth century |
| Genre | Tragedy (primarily), comedy |
| Literary movement | Classicalism, Jansenism |
| Notable works | Andromaque, Phèdre, Athalie |
Jean Racine (born Jean-Baptiste Racine, December 21, 1639 – April 21, 1699) was a famous French writer of plays. He was one of the three most important playwrights in France during the 1600s, along with Molière and Pierre Corneille.
Racine was mostly known for writing sad plays called tragedies. Some of his most famous tragedies include Phèdre, Andromaque, and Athalie. He also wrote one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a gentler tragedy for young people, Esther.
Racine's plays showed how well he could use a special kind of French poetry called the French alexandrine. This meant each line had 12 syllables. His writing was known for being elegant, clear, and full of strong feelings. He was also praised for his deep understanding of people's emotions and the powerful feelings of his characters.
Contents
Biography
Jean Racine was born on December 21, 1639, in a town called La Ferté-Milon in northern France. Sadly, he lost both his parents by the time he was four years old. His grandparents took care of him. When his grandfather died in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, moved to a convent (a religious home) called Port-Royal and took Racine with her.
At Port-Royal, Racine received a classical education. He was very good at studying old Greek and Roman stories, which later inspired many of his plays. The people who ran Port-Royal were followers of Jansenism, a religious group whose ideas were not approved by the church at the time. Racine's time with them greatly influenced him throughout his life.
He was expected to study law in Paris, but he felt more drawn to an artistic life. He started writing poetry, and a famous French writer named Nicolas Boileau praised his work. Racine and Boileau became good friends. Racine eventually moved to Paris and became involved in the theater world.
Early Plays and Rivalries
Racine's first play, Amasie, was never performed. His first play to be shown on stage was La Thébaïde (also known as The Thebans), performed by Molière's acting group in Paris on June 20, 1664. The next year, Molière also put on Racine's second play, Alexandre le Grand.
However, Alexandre was so popular that Racine secretly arranged for a rival acting company, the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to perform it. This company was known for performing tragedies better. So, Alexandre was performed a second time by a different group, just eleven days after its first showing. Molière never forgave Racine for this. Racine made things worse by starting a relationship with Molière's main actress, Thérèse du Parc. After this, the Hôtel de Bourgogne group performed all of Racine's plays that were not religious.
Racine's plays often had classical themes, but he also faced criticism. People accused him of upsetting audiences. He broke ties with Port-Royal and continued with Andromaque (1667). This play told the story of Andromache, the wife of Hector, and what happened to her after the Trojan War.
Racine had rivals, including Pierre Corneille and his brother, Thomas Corneille. Playwrights often competed by writing different versions of the same story. For example, Michel le Clerc wrote an Iphigénie in the same year as Racine (1674), and Jacques Pradon also wrote a play about Phèdre (1677). The success of Pradon's play, partly due to paid applause, was one reason Racine decided to stop writing plays for a while. Even so, he was the first French writer to earn most of his money from his writing. Some historians believe he stopped because of his own conscience.
Later Life and Royal Court
A big event that seems to have led to Racine leaving public life was his involvement in a court scandal in 1679. Around this time, he married a religious woman named Catherine de Romanet. His religious beliefs and devotion to the Jansenist group became strong again. He and his wife had two sons and five daughters.
Around the time of his marriage and leaving the theater, Racine became a royal historian for King Louis XIV, along with his friend Boileau. He kept this job despite some small scandals. In 1672, he was chosen to join the Académie française, a very important French group for arts and sciences. He gained a lot of power in this organization. Later, he received other important titles from the king. Because of Racine's successful career at court, King Louis XIV provided for his wife and children after his death.
Racine eventually returned to the theater at the request of Madame de Maintenon, King Louis XIV's second wife. He wrote two moral plays based on Old Testament stories: Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691). These plays were meant to be performed by students at a school in Saint-Cyr.
Jean Racine died in 1699 from liver cancer. He wanted to be buried in Port-Royal, but after King Louis XIV ordered that site destroyed in 1710, his remains were moved to the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church in Paris.
Style and Plays
Racine's greatest gift to French literature was the quality of his poetry. He was incredibly skilled at using the French alexandrine poetic line.
Racine's work received some criticism from other writers of his time. One criticism was that his plays, like Britannicus (1669) and Mithridate (1673), were not always historically accurate. Racine quickly pointed out that his rivals were often guilty of the same thing. Another criticism was that his tragedy Bérénice (1670) didn't have enough action. Racine replied that the greatest tragedy doesn't always need bloodshed and death.
Play Characteristics
Racine used a limited vocabulary of about 4000 words in his plays. He avoided everyday expressions. He also strictly followed the classical unities of drama, which meant his plays focused only on the final part of a long crisis. The number of characters, who were all royal, was kept very small. There was almost no physical action on stage. For example, the injured Hippolyte is not brought back on stage, unlike in the play by Euripides.
Racine's tragedies show how people fall from good fortune to disaster. The higher a character's position, the greater the tragedy when they fall. Except for a few trusted friends, Racine wrote about kings, queens, princes, and princesses. These characters were free from the pressures of daily life and could speak and act without holding back.
Some people believe Racine's tragedies were deeply influenced by the Jansenist idea of fate. However, Racine himself denied any connection to Jansenism.
Dramatic Unities
Racine followed the dramatic unities more closely than the ancient Greek playwrights. These rules suggested that a play's action should happen within one day and in one location.
The only rule that was always followed was the "unity of action." This meant that every part of a tragedy had to be connected to the whole story, and nothing could be changed or removed without harming the play. The unities of time and place were added later by other writers.
Racine's plays are different from those of his rival, Pierre Corneille, who often packed many events into his plays that would take more than a month to happen. Racine, instead, focused on changing states of mind. In his plays, a tense situation quickly builds to a crisis from which there is no escape. The so-called Aristotelian rules worked perfectly for Racine's plays because they made him focus the tragic action on just a few hours. During these hours, after months or years of emotional tension, a new event causes a disaster.
One sign of Racine's success is that when you watch his plays, you don't even notice the unities. For example, in Phèdre, a character goes out, fights a monster, and dies, and another character returns to announce the death, all within a few minutes of stage time. These small time differences usually go unnoticed by the audience.
Racine always followed the unity of place. He chose vague settings like "a room in Pyrrhus's palace" or "an antechamber in the temple at Jerusalem." By doing this, Racine gave his plays a universal feeling. This also allowed him to focus on the characters' conflicting and uncertain feelings without being distracted by too much scenery. Sometimes, the unity of place led to slightly unusual meetings, but these were necessary to follow the rule.
Finally, the unity of place often required characters to describe events that happened off stage. This fit perfectly with Racine's goals. For example, hearing about Pyrrhus's murder from Oreste in Andromaque is a powerful moment. And Théramène's description of Hippolyte's death in Phèdre is much more moving and poetic than if it were shown imperfectly on stage.
Criticism and Legacy
Racine's plays have received many different reactions from audiences and critics, from great admiration to strong dislike.
17th Century Views
In his own time, Racine was often compared to his famous rival, Pierre Corneille. Racine tried to make his plays simpler and more realistic than Corneille's complex ones. Audiences liked Racine's return to simplicity and found his characters more relatable. However, critics judged him by older, traditional rules.
Over time, Racine became more popular than Corneille. In 1674, the respected critic Boileau published his Art Poétique, which said Racine's style of tragedy was better than Corneille's. This confirmed Racine's skill as a playwright and made him one of the greatest writers of his time.
Racine's rise to fame happened during a special time in French history. France was becoming very powerful under King Louis XIV. This period also saw other great artists and writers. France developed a new national identity, believing that everything French was superior. In this mindset, Racine and his work were seen as perfect examples of dramatic tragedy.
Later Centuries
In the 1800s, some critics, especially in Germany and Britain, disliked Racine. They felt his plays were too formal and limited by royal court rules to show true human passion. They preferred writers like Shakespeare. However, in France, as new, more challenging writers appeared, some conservative readers returned to Racine for his simple style.
By the 1900s, there was a new effort to see Racine's works as more than just historical documents. Critics pointed out that plays like Phèdre could be seen as realistic dramas with universal characters that could exist in any time period. They also looked at the hidden themes of violence and scandal in his plays. People generally agreed that to fully understand Racine, his work needed to be viewed outside of just the 17th century.
Today
Today, Racine is still widely considered a brilliant writer. His plays are still read and performed often. His influence can even be seen in modern books, like A.S. Byatt's series about Frederica Potter, a young English woman who loves Racine's play Phèdre.
Translations
Many people believe that the beauty of Racine's poetry is very hard to translate into other languages. However, many famous poets have tried to translate his work into English, including Robert Lowell and Richard Wilbur. His plays have also been translated into German by Friedrich Schiller.
Dramatic Works
Tragedies
- La Thébaïde (1664)
- Alexandre le Grand (1665)
- Andromaque (1667)
- Britannicus (1669)
- Bérénice (1670)
- Bajazet (1672)
- Mithridate (1673)
- Iphigénie (1674)
- Phèdre (1677)
- Esther (1689)
- Athalie (1691)
Comedies
- Les Plaideurs (1668)
Other Works
Translations
- Le Banquet de Platon (Plato's Symposium)
- Vie de Diogène le Cynique (Life of Diogenes the Cynic)
- Texts by Eusebius of Caesarea
- La Poétique (Aristotle's Poetics)
Historical Works
- Vie de Louis XIV (Life of Louis XIV) (This work is lost)
- Abrégé de l'histoire de Port-Royal (Summary of the History of Port-Royal) (published in 1767)
Images for kids
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Jean Racine on a 1989 Soviet Union stamp
See also
In Spanish: Jean Racine para niños
