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This is the first volume of what is planned to be a complete traversal in English of Racine's twelve plays, only the third time such a project has been undertaken in the three hundred years since Racine's death. Volume I comprises "Iphigenia," "Andromache" and "Britannicus"; all three are potent blends of passion and politics, explosive in their confrontations between Racine's highly charged, highly volatile characters.

For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has taken a fresh approach: he has rendered these three plays in a verse form that Racine might very well have utilized had he been English, namely, the rhymed "heroic" couplet, which, as Argent powerfully argues in his stimulating Introduction, is particularly well-suited to convey the genius of Racine.

While his versions are remarkably faithful to Racine's textual content and emotional tone, Argent's aim has been to produce, not something that sounds like bad Racine, but something that sounds like good English. To effect this, he has brought to bear on Racine's rhymed alexandrines all the resources of English prosody, allowing their English counterparts to perform according to their own nature, rather than wrenching the verse into a superficial resemblance to the original.

Argent's translations, resuscitating a great and still-viable English verse form, should prove to be the first complete traversal worthy of "the greatest French author" (in the words of Roland Barthes).

Racine's powerful 17-th-century adaptation of Euripides classic tragedy.

Phaedra by Jean Racine. Translated by Robert Bruce Boswell libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!

This is the fifth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays. Geoffrey Alan Argent’s translations faithfully convey all the urgency and keen psychological insight of Racine’s dramas, and the coiled strength of his verse, while breathing new vigor into the time-honored form of the “heroic” couplet. Complementing this translation are the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary—particularly detailed and extensive for this volume, Britannicus being by far Racine’s most historically informed play. Also noteworthy is Argent’s reinstatement of an eighty-two-line scene, originally intended to open Act III, that has never before appeared in an English translation of this play. Britannicus , one of Racine’s greatest plays, dramatizes the crucial day when Nero—son of Agrippina and stepson of the late emperor Claudius—overcomes his mother, his wife Octavia, his tutors, and his vaunted “three virtuous years” in order to announce his omnipotence. He callously murders his innocent stepbrother, Britannicus, and effectively destroys Britannicus’s beloved, the virtuous Junia, as well. Racine may claim, in his first preface, that this tragedy “does not concern itself at all with affairs of the world at large,” but nothing could be further from the truth. The tragedy represented in Britannicus is precisely that of the Roman Empire, for in Nero Racine has created a character who embodies the most infamous qualities of that empire — its cruelty, its depravity, and its refined barbarity.

An Almeida Theatre production that opened at the Albery Theatre with Diana Rigg and Toby Stephens, and then played for a season on Broadway. This political thriller, set in Rome at the beginning of Emperor Nero’s tyranny, lays bare the relationships at the heart of power as a world slips into moral chaos.

The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moli?re and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of Jean Racine, at present, he is widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. In this volume of Racine's plays we find «Esther», the penultimate of twelve plays by the author. «Esther» was written at the request of Madame de Maintenon, second wife of King Louis XIV of France, who wished Racine write some more liturgical works to be performed by the pupils of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a famous academy for girls. Racine's drama concerns the Biblical character of Esther, Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus, who is commonly thought to be Xerxes I.

The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moli?re and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of Jean Racine, at present, he is widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. In this volume of Racine's plays we find «The Thebaid», the first of twelve plays by the author. Racine draws upon Sophocles' «Antigone» and Euripides' «Phoenician Women» for this drama. The play concerns the struggle and death of the young son of Oedipus, as well as that of Antigone. The plot follows that of the other Theban plays in which we find Eteocles and Polynices, two warring brothers, Jocasta, their mother, Antigone, their sister, and Menoeceus and Haemon, their two cousins. All attempt unsuccessfully to quell the conflict between these two brothers in this tragic drama.

The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moli?re and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of Jean Racine, at present, he is widely considered a literary genius of revolutionary proportions. In this volume of Racine's plays we find «Mithridates», the eighth of twelve plays by the author. In this drama Racine draws upon the historical figure of Mithridates who is remembered as one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and successful enemies. Having reigned over the kingdom of Pontus, around the Black Sea, Mithridates was famous for having gradually immunized himself to poisons. Popular in its day being a favorite of King Louis XIV, the play has become increasingly rare on stage over the past centuries.