Jean-Baptiste Racine - The Thebaid or The Brothers At War (biographical notes)

Описание: THE THEBAID OR THE BROTHERS AT WAR.....
The reign of Louis XIV. in France, like the age of Pericles at ancient Athens, was remarkable for literary excellence no less than for military achievements. Like Euripides, Racine confined himself almost exclusively to tragedy.... It was under Molière's friendly auspices that Racine's first published play, "La Thébaïde," was put upon the stage ... at the Palais Royale, Molière's own theater." The story, very much the opposite of a Moliere farce, describes the battle between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, and being a proper tragedy does not end well for anyone.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY.....
Jean-Baptiste Racine (December 22, 1639 – April 21, 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such "examples of neoclassical perfection" as Phèdre, Andromaque and Athalie. He did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs and a muted tragedy, Esther, for the young.

Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic (12 syllable) French alexandrine. His writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed, and fury and for what American poet Robert Lowell described as a "diamond-edge" and the "glory of its hard, electric rage". Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage.

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