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Racine and The Problem of Suicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Marion Monaco
Marion Monaco*
Affiliation:
Connecticut College, New London
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Extract

The Suicides of Racine, and of the seventeenth-century French theatre in general, have been studied in terms of the technical requirements pertaining to staging which developed from Greco-Roman theory and practice. This is a logical approach which cannot be dismissed, especially since in the seventeenth century the theory of bienséance was expanded to include the ethical proprieties. Nevertheless such a technical approach cannot provide full insight into Racine's intent. An adequate understanding of Racine's use of suicides is possible only when we analyze the particular suicides of the various plays in terms of the inner construction of Racine's tragedies and in terms of the interaction in Racine's thought of Greco-Roman and Christian factors.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , June 1955 , pp. 441 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

1 See Voltaire, “Discours sur la tragédie,” ?uvres complètes, (Paris, 1819–25), i, 317; G. Lanson, Esquisse d'une histoire de la tragédie française (Paris, 1927), pp. 105–106; Thomas R. Lounsbury, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (New York, 1911), pp. 175, 188; H. C. Lancaster, Pierre Du Ryer (Washington, D.C., 1913), pp. 86, 156; R. C. Flickinger, The Greek Theater and its Drama (Chicago, 1918), pp. 130–131; and J. Schérer, La Dramaturgie classique en France (Paris, 1950), pp. 410–421.

2 Some of the suicides which are staged in some form from 1624 to 1698 are in A. Hardy, Scédase (v), Didon se sacrifiant (v. i); J. Mairet, Sophonisbe (v.v.), Marc Antoine (iv.ii); P. Du Ryer, Saul (v.iv), Lucrèce (v.ii); P. Corneille, Médée (v.iv.vii), Rodogune (v.iv); J. Rotrou, Grisante (iv.v;v.v), Antigone (v.ix); U. Chevreau, La Lucresse romaine (v,vii); I. Benserade, Cléopâtre (v.v); G. Scudéry, Didon (v,vi); P. Quinault, La Mort de Cyrus (v.vii); Pradon, Tamerlan (v.v); La Fosse, Manlius (v.viii).

3 ?uvres, ed. P. Mesnard (Paris, 1885), vi, 224, 241, 242.

4 Schérer, op. cit. (above, n. 1), pp. 418–421; A. Bayet, Le Suicide et la morale (Paris' 1922), pp. 559–565.

5 See Paul Bénichou, Morales du grand siècle (Paris, 1948), pp. 16–18.

6 Quotations from Racine in my text are from the P. Mesnard edition in n. 3. The spelling in all of the citations throughout the text has been modernized.

7 G. Guarini, Compendio délia poesia tragicomica, Scrittori d'Italia (Ban, 1914), pp. 234–242; J. La Mesnardière, La poétique (Paris, 1640), pp. 201–207.

8 Paul Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle (Paris, 1948), pp. 131–155, and Henri Busson, La Religion des Classiques (Paris, 1948), pp. 193–228.

9 In his edition of Racine, Principes de la tragédie (Paris, 1951), pp. 47–48, E. Vinaver discusses Racine's addition of “par sa faute” to Aristotle's description of the misfortunes of the tragic hero, contrasts it with the Greek notion of ignorance of certain facts, and defines it as the “faute d'une fatalité humaine” or the inherent disorder of the hero which comes from murderous passion.

10 Georges May in D'Ovide à Racine (New Haven, 1949), pp. 85–90 discusses the imagistic variations of love as poison in Racine's plays and traces them to Ovid.

11 John C. Lapp, “Racine's Symbolism,” YFS (Spring 19S2), 40–45, discusses the altar symbolism in Racine's plays and also studies the symbolism of the headband which is the instrument of the attempted suicide of Monime in Mithridate.