Editing Jean Racine (section)

====Racine’s concept of love====
In a second important respect, Racine is at variance with the Greek pattern of tragedy. His tragic characters are aware of, but can do nothing to overcome, the blemish which leads them on to a catastrophe. And the tragic recognition, or ''[[anagnorisis]]'', of wrongdoing is not confined, as in the ''[[Oedipus Rex|Œdipus Tyrannus]]'', to the end of the play, when the fulfilment of the prophecy is borne in upon Œdipus; Phèdre realizes from the very beginning the monstrousness of her passion, and preserves throughout the play a lucidity of mind that enables her to analyse and reflect upon this fatal and hereditary weakness. Hermione's situation is rather closer to that of Greek tragedy. Her love for Pyrrhus is perfectly natural and is not in itself a flaw of character. But despite her extraordinary lucidity (II 1; V 1) in analysing her violently fluctuating states of mind, she is blind to the fact that the King does not really love her (III 3), and this weakness on her part, which leads directly to the tragic ''[[peripeteia]]'' of III 7, is the ''[[hamartia]]'' from which the tragic outcome arises.

For Racine, love closely resembles a physiological disorder. It is a fatal illness with alternating moods of calm and crisis, and with deceptive hopes of recovery or fulfilment (''[[Andromaque]]'', ll. 1441–1448; ''[[Phèdre]]'', ll. 767-768), the final remission culminating in a quick death. His main characters are monsters, and stand out in glaring contrast to the regularity of the plays' structure and versification. The suffering lover Hermione, Roxane or Phèdre is aware of nothing except her suffering and the means whereby it can be relieved. Her love is not founded upon esteem of the beloved and a concern for his happiness and welfare, but is essentially selfish. In a torment of jealousy, she tries to relieve the "pangs of despised love" by having (or, in Phèdre's case, allowing) him to be put to death, and thus associating him with her own suffering. The depth of tragedy is reached when Hermione realizes that Pyrrhus's love for Andromaque continues beyond the grave, or when Phèdre contrasts the young lovers' purity with her unnaturalness which should be hidden from the light of day. Racine's most distinctive contribution to literature is his conception of the ambivalence of love: "ne puis-je savoir si j'aime, ou si je hais?"

The passion of these lovers is totally destructive of their dignity as human beings, and usually kills them or deprives them of their reason. Except for Titus and Bérénice, they are blinded by it to all sense of duty. Pyrrhus casts off his fiancée in order to marry a slave from an enemy country, for whom he is prepared to repudiate his alliances with the Greeks. Orestes' duties as an ambassador are subordinate to his aspirations as a lover, and he finally murders the king to whom he has been sent. Néron's passion for Junie causes him to poison Britannicus and thus, after two years of virtuous government, to inaugurate a tyranny.

The characteristic Racinian framework is that of the eternal triangle: two young lovers, a prince and a princess, being thwarted in their love by a third person, usually a queen whose love for the young prince is unreciprocated. Phèdre destroys the possibility of a marriage between Hippolyte and Aricie. Bajazet and Atalide are prevented from marrying by the jealousy of Roxane. Néron divides Britannicus from Junie. In ''[[Bérénice]]'' the amorous couple are kept apart by considerations of state. In ''[[Andromaque]]'' the system of unrequited passions borrowed from tragicomedy alters the dramatic scheme, and Hermione destroys a man who has been her fiancé, but who has remained indifferent to her, and is now marrying a woman who does not love him. The young princes and princesses are agreeable, display varying degrees of innocence and optimism and are the victims of evil machinations and the love/hatred characteristic of Racine.