Description
Book SynopsisIn two of his most famous plays, Britannicus and Bérénice, Racine depicts the tragedies of characters trapped by the ideals, desires, and cruelties of ancient Rome. This international collection of essays deploys cutting-edge research to illuminate the plays and their contexts. For Racine, Rome is more than a location, it is a set of values and traditions, a space of opportunity and oppression. The contributors to this volume examine Racine’s stagecraft, his exploration of time and space, sound and silence, and the ways in which he develops his own distinctive understanding of tragedy. The reception of his plays by contemporaries and subsequent generations also features. In Racine’s hands, Rome becomes a state of mind, haunted by both past and future. This book's dedicatee, Richard Parish, passed away on January 1st 2022, just before publication. We would like to dedicate this collection of essays to his memory.
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors Introduction: Racine’s Imagined Rome Nicholas Hammond and Paul Hammond Part 1: Defining Tragedy 1 Britannicus et Bérénice : tragédies aristotéliciennes ? Tristan Alonge 2 Britannicus, the Tragic Family, and the Problem of the Hero John D. Lyons 3 Stones Wrapped in String: The Paths Not Taken in Racine’s Bérénice Paul Hammond Part 2: Sound, Metatheatre, and Theatrical Space 4 ‘Mille bruits’: Listening to Britannicus Nicholas Hammond 5 Noises Off? Bérénice’s Echo Chamber Joseph Harris 6 Le public fragmenté de Titus : la métaphore théâtrale dans Bérénice Delphine Calle 7 Bérénice: Disoriented in Rome John D. Lyons 8 Staging Britannicus and Bérénice: Problems in Spatial Dynamics Michael Hawcroft Part 3: Ambiguity, Concealment, and Duplicity 9 Naissance des monstres : Le mal et ses doubles dans Britannicus Tony Gheeraert 10 Mendacity in Racine’s Britannicus Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde 11 ‘D’un voile d’amitié j’ai couvert mon amour’: Homoerotic Subtexts in Bérénice Paul Scott Part 4: Racine and His Rivals 12 Bérénice: Racine between Corneille and Barthes Michael Moriarty 13 La Bataille des Bérénice : une concurrence repensée Hélène Bilis 14 Pradon and the ‘Parodie de Bérénice’ Jan Clarke Part 5: Sources and Translations 15 Painting and Silence: Racine and His Classical Sources for Britannicus and Bérénice Susan Reynolds 16 ‘If Neither Faith nor Tears nor Means Can Move’: Translating Emotion from Racine’s Bérénice (1670) to Otway’s Titus and Berenice (1676) Suzanne Jones 17 The Place of Breath in Alan Hollinghurst’s Berenice Denis Flannery Bibliography Index
