[PDF] de RACINE

Who was Jean Racine & what did he do?

Racine has been hailed by posterity as the foremost practitioner of tragedy in French history. His virtuoso treatment of the poetic metre used in 17th-century French tragedy, the alexandrine line, is the basis for his status as the uncontested master of French classicism.

Who wrote Cantique de Jean Racine?

Cantique de Jean Racine (Chant by Jean Racine), Op. 11, is a composition for mixed choir and piano or organ by Gabriel Fauré. The text, "Verbe égal au Très-Haut" ("Word, one with the Highest"), is a French paraphrase by Jean Racine of a Latin hymn from the breviary for matins, Consors paterni luminis.

How old was Racine when he was born?

Racine was born on 21 December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon ( Aisne ), in the province of Picardy in northern France. Orphaned by the age of four (his mother died in 1641 and his father in 1643), he came into the care of his grandparents.

Was Racine a höfisches Drama?

Germans like Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dismissed Racine as höfisches Drama, or "courtly drama" too restricted by the étiquette and conventions of a royal court for the true expression of human passion. French critics, too, revolted.