Racine, Jean (1639–99), French playwright and poet, one of the greatest tragic dramatists in the history of the theatre. Orphaned at the age of 4, he was brought up by his grandparents and his aunt Agnès, later Abbess of Port-Royal, where Racine was educated after a few years at the Collège de Beauvais. He was an excellent scholar, an enthusiastic admirer of the Greek dramatists, and at 19 already a good poet. He soon escaped from the restraining influence of Port-Royal and the Jansenists and led a free, though not particularly dissipated, life. He was quickly accepted in literary circles, where he made the acquaintance of
Molière, who in 1664 staged his first play
La Thébaïde;
ou,
Les Frères ennemis at the
Palais-Royal. It was successful enough for Molière to accept his second play
Alexandre le Grand (1665), but a fortnight after its production Racine allowed the actors at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne to stage it in direct competition with Molière's company. His excuse was that he was not satisfied with the Palais-Royal production, and it was true that the Hôtel de Bourgogne had a higher reputation in tragedy; but it is possible that feminine intrigue played a part, as
Mlle du Parc [
Marquise-Thérèse de Gorla] (1633–68), a fine tragic actress and Racine's mistress at the time, left Molière's company in order to play the lead in Racine's next play
Andromaque (1667) at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. After this double betrayal Molière never spoke to Racine again and Racine did not long enjoy his triumph as Mlle du Parc died suddenly the following year. There was some unkind gossip about the affair at the time, and in 1680 the infamous poisoner Catherine Voisin alleged at her trial that Racine had removed Mlle du Parc to make way for Mlle
Champmeslé, who had come from the
Marais to play Hermione to du Parc's Andromaque. She certainly became Racine's mistress and was closely associated with his later work.
With the production of
Andromaque Racine first achieved recognition as an outstanding dramatist, rival of the ageing Corneille and in some ways superior to him. It was followed by Racine's only comedy
Les Plaideurs (
The Litigants, 1668), based partly on
Aristophanes' Wasps. It was intended for the Italian actors at the Palais-Royal, but on the departure of Tiberio
Fiorillo (Scaramouche) from Paris it was transferred to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where after a slow start it was extremely successful and frequently revived. It remained in the repertory, and in 1920 stood sixth in the list of plays most frequently given at the
Comédie-Française. Sadly, Racine wrote no more comedies. His next tragedy,
Britannicus (1669), was not a success, in spite of its exquisite poetry, but according to
Boileau the portrait of Nero deterred Louis XIV from featuring himself further in Court ballets and entertainments. With his next play Racine found himself at odds with Corneille. Either by accident or design they were both working on the same subject, and the production of Racine's
Bérénice (1670) took place only a week before Molière produced Corneille's
Tite et Bérénice. Racine's version was more generally admired, and he followed it with two more tragedies,
Bajazet (1672) and
Mithridate (1673), both historical and oriental subjects treated in a contemporary style very different from Corneille's. Racine was often criticized for abandoning the latter's heroic mood but was now firmly established as the leading tragic dramatist of his day, and his
Iphigénie (1674) was a brilliant success. But with his greatest play,
Phèdre (1677), he finally terminated his career as a tragic dramatist. Several events probably contributed to the sudden cessation of his dramatic work. A mediocre dramatist, Pradon, was persuaded to present a tragedy on the same subject two days earlier than Racine's, and his enemies—he had plenty, for he was not a particularly likeable man—made sure that its reception far outdid that accorded to Racine's. There were also more sensible reasons for his withdrawal. He had recently been looked on favourably by Louis XIV, who offered him a position as historiographer royal, a Court appointment incompatible with an active career in the theatre. His relations with Port-Royal, where he had been brought up, ameliorated, he married and had seven children, and he turned his undoubted gifts to the studying and recording of French history. It was not until 1689 that at the request of Mme de
Maintenon he wrote, for performance by the young ladies at her school at Saint-Cyr, the tender and poetic
Esther and the more powerful but no less poetic
Athalie. Neither was seen in public for many years, though
Athalie proved the more enduring. But it is by their performance in
Phèdre that the greatest actresses, and not only in Paris, have proved their worth. Like Corneille, Racine had a short period of recognition in London, which is echoed in the temporary success of
Addison's Cato (1713), the only successful English play in the French neo-classical style.
