Editing Jean Racine (section)

===General characteristics===
Racine restricts his vocabulary to 2500 words.<ref>{{cite book |last=Howcroft|first=Michael|title=Three Plays : Andromache, Phaedra, Athaliah|year=2000|publisher=Wordsworth|location=Ware|isbn=1840221127|pages=xxx|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qOTGrWWxB08C&q=racine%20vocabulary%20words&pg=PR30|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> He rules out all workaday expressions since, although the Greeks could call a spade a spade, he does not believe that this is possible in Latin or French. The [[classical unities]] are strictly observed, for only the final stage of a prolonged crisis is described. The number of characters, all of them royal, is kept down to the barest minimum. Action on stage is all but eliminated. The mangled Hippolyte is not brought back, as is the ''Hippolytus'' of [[Euripides]]. The one exception to this is that Atalide stabs herself before the audience in ''[[Bajazet (play)|Bajazet]]''; but this is acceptable in a play conspicuous for its savagery and Oriental colour.