ABSTRACT
An admirer himself of Malherbe, no rebel against the conventions of préciosité, an imitator of the Greeks and a respecter of contemporary good taste, his verse should have been well-mannered and slightly dull. Possibly it even appears so on a first acquaintance, but to be halted by this surface impression is to turn back on the brink of a new world – an alien world, perhaps, but one full of power, subtlety and beauty. Racine was the most professional of writers, capable of separating his work from what is known of his private emotions in a way unusual in a dramatist. In some respects, Racine’s character is appreciably more modern than that of any other poet we have so far considered. But in others, disconcertingly though inevitably, he belonged to an age which still burnt poisoners at the stake, compromised the souls of its favourite actors by excommunication and relied on bleedings and purgations for its physical well-being.
