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Racine, Menestrier, and Sublime Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Margaret McGowan
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Extract

The year 1674 is a very interesting one for the study of Racine. In that year a quarrel had temporarily separated Lully and Quinault, and the composer needed a new libretto. Racine (aided by Boileau) began work on La Chute de Phaëton, and although the opera was never finished (as Louis XIV forced Lully to work again with Quinault) the fact that Racine agreed, however reluctantly, to compose verse for opera is not without significance. Indeed, Vanuxem has argued that Racine was here showing a continuing interest in this form since he had already been engaged three years earlier on an opera based on the story of Orpheus, of which nothing survives. Quinault's extraordinarily successful opera Alceste was performed at Versailles on 7 July 1674 while, in the same year, Boileau celebrated his increasing importance at Court and in literary circles with the publication of a translation from the Greek of a Treatise on the Sublime, a work traditionally attributed to Longinus. And finally, in August 1674, Racine's Iphigènie received its first performance in a spectacular setting, in a theatre, built at the entrance of the Orangerie at Versailles, created for the occasion by the Vigarani brothers. The play was much applauded, and yet the excitement it aroused was outdone by the illuminations and fireworks which exploded immediately after its performance. Some 30,000 varied fireworks were invented by Le Brun to celebrate the magnificence of Louis XIV triumphing over his foes despite ‘L'Envie representée par le Dragon’ belching forth from every orifice torrents of flame and thick smoke.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , October 1975 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1975

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References

Notes

1. Vanuxem, J., ‘Racine, les machines, et les fêtes’, Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 54, 1954.Google Scholar The date of Phaëton has been variously given as 1674, 1679 and 1682.

2. I quote from vol. 2 of Boileau, 's Oeuvres, Paris, 1832, p. 103.Google Scholar

3. The analysis will be found in Racine et la Grèce, Paris, 1950, pp. 298–322.Google Scholar

4. All quotations from Racine's plays and prefaces are taken from the Gamier edition of the Théâtre complet, Paris, 1958; this quotation occurs on p. 476.Google Scholar

5. See especially Knight, , Racine et la GrèceGoogle Scholar, passim; and Vinaver, E.'s notes to his edition of Racine's Principes de la Tragédie, Manchester University Press, 1951.Google Scholar

6. Particularly by Spitzer, Leo in Linguistics and Literary History. Essays in Stylistics, New York, 1962, pp. 87–134.Google Scholar

7. abbé d'Aubignac, François Hedelin, Pratique du Théâtre, reprint text, 1971, p. 306.Google Scholar

8. See Vaumorière, , Harangues sur toutes sortes de sujets avec l'art de les composer, Paris, 1893.Google Scholar

9. Oeuvres, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 104, 111, 291.Google Scholar

10. Des Representations, pp. 135–6.Google Scholar

11. Mesnard, P., Oeuvres de Jean Racine, 8 vols, Paris, 1865–1873, III, 403Google Scholar; Knight, , Racine et la Grèce, p. 382Google Scholar; and Gros, E. Philippe Quinault. Sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, 1926.Google Scholar

12. Preface to Esther, p. 601.Google Scholar He also instructed the girls at Saint-Cyr in ‘la façon de réciter’ his verse.

13. The remarkable lyrical qualities of many of these choruses suggest that, in Esther, Racine is attempting to overcome an omission he noted in his comments on Médée (vv. 192–7)Google Scholar ‘on a invents la musique pour les festins, où il n'y a déjà que trop de joie, et on n'a point songé à en inventer pour calmer les afflictions’.

14. Journal, 18 août 1688.Google Scholar

15. Gros, , pp. 738–9Google Scholar; and Knight, , pp. 384–5Google Scholar, who is more sceptical about its unique significance.

16. Oeuvres, 2, 317.Google Scholar