Phèdre
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Overview
Phèdre was a 1677 play by Jean Racine, based on both the play Hippolytus by Euripides, and a later Roman play Phaedra by Seneca the Younger. Due to its negative reception in the popular press, Racine abandoned writing for the public theater after this play (although later in his career he did write additional works on a royal commission). It is generally considered his finest work; it was chosen for inclusion in the Harvard Classics. Phèdre is the last secular tragedy of Racine before a long silence of twelve years, during which time he devoted himself to the service of King Louis XIV and to religion. In Phèdre, Racine again chose a subject already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets. In the absence of her husband, King Thésée, Phèdre falls in love Hippolyte, son of Thésée of a preceding marriage.
Every aspect of Phèdre was celebrated: the tragic construction, the depth of the personages and the wealth of the versification. In contrast to Euripides in Hippolytos kalyptomenos, Racine puts off Phèdre's death until the end of the play. In this way, she has time to learn of Hippolytes death. Phèdre, at once guilty of causing misfortune and being victim to it, is most remarkable among Racine's tragic heroes and heroines.
Summary
Act 1. Hippolyte, son of Thésée and of an Amazon, announces to his confidant his intention to leave the city of Trézène to flee his love for Aricie, the only living descendant of a enemy clan of Thésée. Phèdre, wife of Thésée, is dragging herself around the palace wanting to die, and is pleaded with by Oenone, her confidante, to try and live. Phèdre confides to Oenone the passion that she feels for his stepson Hippolyte. The death of Thésée is announced.
Act 2. Aricie confides in his serving that she is in love with Hippolyte; he then arrives and unveils his own similar feelings. Phèdre comes to see Hippolyte in order to uphold the right of her son to suceed Thésée as ruler; she then, under the influence of Oenone to do so, declares her love to Hippolyte.
Act 3. Thésée, who is not dead, comes back to Trézène and is astonished to receive so cold a welcome: Hippolyte wants to flee his mother-in-law, Phèdre is destroyed by the guilt she feels at having revealed her love to both Oenone and Hippolyte.
Act 4. Oenone, who fears that Hippolyte will denounce Phèdre for her admission of love, declares to Thésée that Hippolyte attempted to seduce Phèdre. Thésée banishes Hippolyte and asks the god Neptune (who owes Theseus a favor) to kill his son. Phèdre wants to convince Thésée that he is mistaken until she learns that Hippolyte is in love with Aricie. Furious to have a rival, she renounces him and leaves him to his father's wrath.
Act 5. Hippolyte leaves after to having promised Aricie to marry her outside the city. Thésée begins having doubts about the guilt of his son, but it is too late. Phèdre, after to have banished Oenone for her advice and manipulation, confesses to Thésée that Hippolyte was innocent. Having taken poison before this, she collapses. Thésée races after his son, only to find him dead. To make up for his judgment, Thésée forgives and decides to adopt Aricie.
The Effect of Genealogy upon Phèdre
The genealogy of Phèdre gives a lot of indications as to her character's destiny. Descended from Apollo (the Sun god) and the Pasiphaë, she nevertheless avoids being in the judgmental presence of the sun throughout the play. The simultaneous absence of a god-figure combined with the continual presence of one has been extensively explored in Lucien Goldmann's Le Dieu caché. This sense of patriarchal judgment is extended to Phèdre's father, Minos, who is responsible for weighing the souls of the dead upon their arrival in Hades. Phèdre is right to fear judgment; she is driven to an incestual love for her stepson Hippolyte, much like the women of her family, who tend to experience desires generally considered taboo. Her mother was cursed by Venus to fall in love and copulate with a bull, giving rise to the legendary man/bull hybrid the Minotaur. Phèdre meets Theseus, her future husband, when he arrives on the Minoan scene to kill her monstruous half-brother.
Influence
Certain lines from Phèdre have became classics. The musicality of the alexandrine verse "la fille de Minos et de Pasipha:e" was celebrated so much that it became the object of mocking imitations.
Phèdre's influence was far-reaching. During Racine's time, Phèdre was also the title of a play by Jacques Pradon, treating the same theme. Lucien Goldmann extrapolates social theories of the role of the divine in French consciousnes from thematic elements in Phèdre in his work Le Dieu caché. In the XIXth century, Emile Zola loosely based La Curée, one of his books from Les Rougon-MacQuart series (an exploration of genealogical and environmental influences upon characters) on Racine's Phèdre. In this way, Phèdre has become what is probably Racine's finest work, and although it is perhaps studied at the high school level than Britannicus or Andromaque, it is still performed today.
Characters
Both the French and English transcriptions:
- Phèdre, or Phaedra
- OEnone, or Oenone (nursemaid and advisor to Phèdre)
- Hippolyte, or Hippolytos (stepson of Phaedra)
- Theramène (advisor to Hipployte)
- Thésée, or Theseus (the King of Athens)
- Aricie, or Aricia (a princess punished by Theseus, also the lover of Hippolytos)
External links
--128.95.232.80 01:06, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Categories: Plays