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Berenice and Bajazet
The critical event in "Berenice," the death of Titus's father, the Emperor Vespasian, happens a week before the play opens. Thereafter Titus knows that his separation from Berenice is inevitable.Thereafter Titus knows that his separation from Berenice is inevitable. The breaking off of a great love affair involves too the hopes of Antiochus, himself long in love with Berenice. The play pushes all three of its principals to the brink, not of revenge but of self-murder, before in her sublime last speech Berenice redeems and directs them all in an act of collective abnegation.Many tears are shed, but not a drop of blood. The effect is unconventional, and profound: the pained acceptance of the irreconcilable in human affairs, and the surrender, by each of the main characters, of the person they most love.
"Bajazet" is Racine's most violent drama; it ends, like "Ph dre," with a female character's on-stage suicide, here the culmination of a vividly described sequence of off-stage murders. The setting, in a claustrophobic space within the harem at Constantinople, menaced from both without and within, seems to license a violence of emotion as well as of deed.Violent too are the repeated reversals of fortune, and the terrifying acceleration of the play towards its inexorable catastrophe.
Alan Hollinghurst's translation of "Berenice" premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in October 2012 and "Bajazet," at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 1990."
"Bajazet" is Racine's most violent drama; it ends, like "Ph dre," with a female character's on-stage suicide, here the culmination of a vividly described sequence of off-stage murders. The setting, in a claustrophobic space within the harem at Constantinople, menaced from both without and within, seems to license a violence of emotion as well as of deed.Violent too are the repeated reversals of fortune, and the terrifying acceleration of the play towards its inexorable catastrophe.
Alan Hollinghurst's translation of "Berenice" premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in October 2012 and "Bajazet," at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 1990."
96 pages, ebook
First published October 4, 2012
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About the author
Jean Racine
2,044 books360 followersClassical Greek and Roman themes base noted tragedies, such as
Britannicus
(1669) and
Phèdre
(1677), of French playwright Jean Baptiste Racine.
Adherents of movement of Cornelis Jansen included Jean Baptiste Racine.
This dramatist ranks alongside Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) and Pierre Corneille of the "big three" of 17th century and of the most important literary figures in the western tradition. Psychological insight, the prevailing passion of characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage mark dramaturgy of Racine. Although primarily a tragedian, Racine wrote one comedy.
Orphaned by the age of four years when his mother died in 1641 and his father died in 1643, he came into the care of his grandparents. At the death of his grandfather in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, went to live in the convent of Port-Royal and took her grandson Jean-Baptiste. He received a classical education at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal, a religious institution that greatly influenced other contemporary figures, including Blaise Pascal.
The French bishops and the pope condemned Jansenism, a heretical theology, but its followers ran Port-Royal. Interactions of Racine with the Jansenists in his years at this academy great influenced the rest of his life. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the classics, and the themes of Greek and Roman mythology played large roles in his works.
Jean Racine died from cancer of the liver. He requested burial in Port-Royal, but after Louis XIV razed this site in 1710, people moved his body to the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris.
*source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ra...
Adherents of movement of Cornelis Jansen included Jean Baptiste Racine.
This dramatist ranks alongside Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) and Pierre Corneille of the "big three" of 17th century and of the most important literary figures in the western tradition. Psychological insight, the prevailing passion of characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage mark dramaturgy of Racine. Although primarily a tragedian, Racine wrote one comedy.
Orphaned by the age of four years when his mother died in 1641 and his father died in 1643, he came into the care of his grandparents. At the death of his grandfather in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, went to live in the convent of Port-Royal and took her grandson Jean-Baptiste. He received a classical education at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal, a religious institution that greatly influenced other contemporary figures, including Blaise Pascal.
The French bishops and the pope condemned Jansenism, a heretical theology, but its followers ran Port-Royal. Interactions of Racine with the Jansenists in his years at this academy great influenced the rest of his life. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the classics, and the themes of Greek and Roman mythology played large roles in his works.
Jean Racine died from cancer of the liver. He requested burial in Port-Royal, but after Louis XIV razed this site in 1710, people moved his body to the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris.
*source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ra...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 18, 2020
از پروست اسم راسین به گوشم خورد. شیفتهی بیان موجزش شدم. با یه خلوص عجیبی میپردازه به اصل مطلب.
June 10, 2018
Pretty solid translation! And by solid I mean I enjoyed the interpretation
March 13, 2017
Um, how did I not know of this playwright sooner?
Berenice was complex, rife with jealousy, spurned love and, surprisingly (given what I've read about Racine), no tragic deaths at all. The ending is still tragic in that everyone is unhappy, but I'll not spoil it.
I don't know if this is a spoiler, but Bajazet is the antithesis of Berenice. Still complex, still lots of jealousy and spurned love, different in its execution. (But the style/language is the same.)
Racine is one of the big three French playwrights of the 17th century alongside Moliere and Tartuffe; if Racine is an indicator of what they're capable of, I'm totally checking them out next. And reading the rest of Racine's backlog translated into English.
Berenice was complex, rife with jealousy, spurned love and, surprisingly (given what I've read about Racine), no tragic deaths at all. The ending is still tragic in that everyone is unhappy, but I'll not spoil it.
I don't know if this is a spoiler, but Bajazet is the antithesis of Berenice. Still complex, still lots of jealousy and spurned love, different in its execution. (But the style/language is the same.)
Racine is one of the big three French playwrights of the 17th century alongside Moliere and Tartuffe; if Racine is an indicator of what they're capable of, I'm totally checking them out next. And reading the rest of Racine's backlog translated into English.
March 23, 2019
Bajazet is, I think, almost as good as Phèdre. They are quite different, so the comparison is not really fair, but Bajazet moves so swiftly! And it has so many twists. I love this play. (Bérénice is good too.)
February 12, 2019
This has to be the best translation into English of these two plays. I wish AH would try the other Racines.
February 7, 2021
This is an unpretentious and minimalistic translation of some excellent source material. I strongly recommend this volume.
February 12, 2024
Ah, strict step of time, How slow you seem to my tumultuous thoughts!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews