Corneille and Racine: Problems of Tragic Form

by Gordon Pocock

• ISBN13: 9780521098144
• ISBN10: 0521098149
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1973-11-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Corneille and Racine may seem like marble monuments of an unchanging typical classicism. Mr Pocock is concerned to show that each of these great dramatists was a living writer, struggling to create developing forms and that the rules of neo-classical decorum were a strait-jacket to them. We can see in their writings a hesitation between poetic drama which creates its own forms from within and naturalistic drama which opts for truth to common life and a medium. In an interesting and comprehensive examination of the two authors, Mr Pocock shows the range of Coneille's achievement, and explains that a good seal which had been dismissed as decadence or incompetence was the result of his casting about for new forms. A section on Racine shows him opting for a deepening mode of drama which rejects naturalism and is implicitly subversive of neo-classical rules.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Corneille and the critics

Le Cid

Cinna

Polyeucte

Corneille's verse

Rodogune

Suréna

Corneille - some conclusions

Racine - career and background

Racine - the beginnings

Approaches to tragedy

Bérénice

The dramatic art of Racine

Phèdre

Athalie

Conclusion

Notes

Select bibliography

Index

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