Phèdre

Definition and stakes

The literary concept of Phèdre originates from Jean Racine’s 1677 tragedy, a pillar of French classical drama that delves into forbidden love, moral struggle, and tragic fate. This theme has been reinterpreted by many authors and performers, each capturing its emotional depth through unique perspectives.

From George Saintsbury’s admiration for Racine’s “excellence of construction” to actresses like Rachel, whose depiction of Phèdre’s “divinity” and “guilt” enthralled audiences, the character represents the tension between desire and retribution. Writers such as Augusta J. Evans and Melesina Chenevix St. George Trench further examine its challenges on stage, underscoring its lasting significance in both literature and performance.

Quotes about “Phèdre”

Augusta J. Evans, Infelice

“ Even in Paris I have never heard a purer, finer rendition of a passage in Phèdre than one day burst from her lips in a moment of deep feeling, yet I cannot tell you how or where she learned French. She made her début in tragedy, somewhere in the West, and when she reappeared in New York her success was brilliant. I have never known a woman whose will was so patiently rigid, so colossal, whose energy was so tireless in the pursuit of one special aim. She has the vigilance and tenacity of a Spanish bloodhound. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Anne Homan-Mulock Kennard, Rachel (1894)

“ But when he did give his lessons, what delightful and profitable hours for his young audience! I see and hear him now. Destitute of all means of illusion, without theatrical costume, a chair between his legs, and an opera-glass in his hand, he was as tragic as on the stage, and made us shudder as he declaimed the verses of Andromaque or Phèdre. In Phèdre's declaration of love to Hippolytus, I hear him uttering these passion-fraught words, "Mais fidèle, mais fier, et même un peu farouche." ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. Noel Williams, Queens of the French Stage

“ They came to laugh and perhaps to hiss; they remained to applaud, and to applaud enthusiastically, for, long before the first act was over, it was apparent to all that a great tragédienne was before them. "It was Phèdre herself in all her sovereign splendour, in all the majesty of passion," and seldom indeed has that immortal queen of sorrow met with so worthy a representative. "The 19th of this month," says the Mercure, "the players have revived at the theatre Racine's tragedy of Phèdre, in which Mlle. Clairon, a new actress, has made her début. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Melesina Chenevix St. George Trench, The remains of the late Mrs. Richard Trench (1862)

“ The abandon, so necessary in the attitudes of Phèdre, betrays her want of mollesse and softness in her motions, and particularly displays those strangely-formed feet, of which the shape and movements are so uncommonly ugly; while her anxiety to hide their defects often gives her a constraint in the moments which ought to be the most devoted to passion. The chief merit of her expression, dignity, is lost in a character always given up to strong emotions ”

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Source: Gutenberg

George Saintsbury, A Short History of French Literature

“ Iphigénie, 1674, has much more liveliness and variety, the deep pathos and terror of the situation making even Racine's interminable love casuistry natural and interesting. But Phèdre, 1677, the last of the series, is unquestionably the most remarkable of Racine's regular tragedies. By it the style must stand or fall, and a reader need hardly go farther to appreciate it. Britannicus was indeed preferred by eighteenth-century judges; but for excellence of construction, artful beauty of verse, skilful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the dramatist, no play can surpass Phèdre ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Forrest Izard, Heroines of the Modern Stage

“ Her Marguérite Gauthier in La Dame aux Camélias did much to give that heroine genuine and compelling appeal to the purer emotions, her Phèdre has its moments of genuine nobility. And though it may be true that, in the main, she worked in those strata of the drama that are of “little benefit to humanity,” the sheer extent and strength of her influence bear witness that much in her work found a response in the minds and sympathies of two generations of people. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Francis William Blagdon, Paris as It Was and as It Is

“ Mademoiselle DUCHESNOIS played Phèdre, in RACINE'S tragedy of that name, seven successive times. She certainly displayed a semblance of sensibility, and, notwithstanding the disadvantages of her person, produced such an effect on the senses of the debauched Parisian youth by the libidinous manner she adopted in the scene where Phèdre declares her unconquerable passion for her son-in-law Hippolyte, that her success was complete. What greater proof can be adduced of the vitiated taste of the male part of the audience? She also performed Sémiramis, Didon, and Hermione ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood, An Epistle to Posterity — Chapter IV (1897)

“ The lover, an ugly, big-headed young Frenchman, against whose presence she shuddered so that she seemed to shake the stage, fully carried out the idea that the power of the goddess must have been supreme, for no woman in her senses could have fallen in love with him. Rachel never seemed to walk, and in Phèdre she gave the idea that a serpent was hidden under her long robe, on whose undulations she was moved along irrespective of her own volition. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Anne Homan-Mulock Kennard, Rachel (1894)

“ In restricting ourselves to a consideration of Rachel and her art, however, we have to thank the petit-maîtres of Versailles for one of the grandest scenes in one of the actress's grandest parts. Here the modern as well as the ancient Phèdre awakens to the "full consciousness of her own divinity"; she feels she cannot escape the all-penetrating glance of her "celestial kinsfolk." The Sun, the Stars, Minos—the terrific judge of Hell—all see her guilt, and with her invocation to each in turn, the unhappy woman sinks on her knees imploring mercy, and gasping out the marvellous word, "Pardonne!" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Benjamin Ellis Martin, The Stones of Paris in History and Letters…

“ This dis-service to dramatic literature was brought about by his forthcoming marriage, by his disgust with the malice of his rivals, by his weariness of the assaults of his enemies, by his somewhat sudden and showy submission to the Church—that sleepless assailant of player and playwright. He hints at the attitude of the godly in his preface to "Phèdre," assuring them that they will have to own—however, in other respects, they may or may not esteem this tragedy—that it castigates Vice and punishes Badness as had no previous play of his. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

H. Noel Williams, Later Queens of the French Stage

“ Even more violent was the hostility displayed when, two nights later, Mlle. Raucourt appeared as Phèdre. All who are familiar with Racine’s famous tragedy know that the part of the hapless heroine contains many lines which may be readily applied to her impersonator by a hostile audience, and, in electing to play it, Mlle. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Edward Dowden, A History of French Literature

“ It is less a drama than one great part, and that part consists of a diseased state of the soul, a morbid conflict of emotions, so that the play becomes overmuch a study in the pathology of passion. The greatness of the rôle of the heroine constitutes the infirmity of the play as a whole; the other characters seem to exist only for the sake of deploying the inward struggle of which Phèdre is the victim. Love and jealousy rage within her; remorse follows, for something of Christian sentiment is conveyed by Racine into his classical fable. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Phèdre

Definition and stakes

Quotes about “Phèdre”

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Authors who wrote about “Phèdre”

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