Editing Jean Racine (section)

===Observance of the dramatic unities===
Racine observes the [[dramatic unities]] more closely than the Greek tragedians had done. The philosopher [[Aristotle]] points out the ways in which tragedy differs from epic poetry:

<blockquote>"Tragedy generally tries to limit its action to a period of twenty-four hours, or not much exceeding that, whilst epic poetry is unlimited in point of time."<ref>Aristotle, ''[[Poetics]]'', chapter 5.</ref></blockquote>

Writing centuries after the great Attic tragedians and using their works as a basis for generalization, he does not insist that the action of a tragedy must be confined to a single revolution of the sun, or that it must take place in one locality. He merely says that this limitation was often practised by writers of tragedy, but he well knew that there were many plays in which no such limitation existed. For instance, [[Æschylus]]'s ''[[Agamemnon (play)|Agamemnon]]'' compresses into about fifteen minutes a journey (from Troy to Argos) which must have taken several days.

Nor was the unity of place a general feature of Attic tragedy. Æschylus's ''[[The Eumenides]]'' has two settings and in ''[[The Suppliants (Euripides)|The Suppliants]]'' of [[Euripides]], it is sometimes impossible to tell where the action is taking place at all. But the circumstances of the Greek theatre, which had no curtain and no distinctive scenery and in which the chorus almost always remained on stage throughout the play, were such that it was frequently desirable to confine the action to a single day and a single place.

The only rule which Aristotle lays down concerning the dramatic action is<ref>Aristotle, ''[[Poetics]]'', chapter 8.</ref> that, in common with all other forms of art, a tragedy must have an internal unity, so that every part of it is in an organic relationship to the whole and no part can be changed or left out without detracting from the economy of the play. No dramatic critic has ever dissented from this ''unity of action'';{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} but the unities of time and place were in fact read into the ''Poetics'' by theoreticians of the [[New Learning]] ([[Jean de La Taille]]) and other writers ([[Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye]] and [[Jean Mairet]]). The support which the unities received from [[Cardinal Richelieu]] eventually secured their complete triumph and [[Pierre Corneille]], who had not conformed to them in his earlier plays, did so from the time of ''[[Le Cid]]'' (1636) onwards. But even he found them a tiresome imposition. Only by a very ready suspension of disbelief can we accept that in the space of twenty-four hours [[El Cid]] kills Chimène's father in a duel, overwhelms the Moorish invaders during the night and fights a second duel only a few hours after the enemy has fled. These discrepancies – and others besides, which [[Pierre Corneille|Corneille]] admits to in his ''Examen'' of the play – are obvious even to the most inattentive spectator.

Unlike his rival, who crams into his plays "quantité d'incidents qui ne se pourraient passer qu'en un mois",<ref>First Preface of ''[[Britannicus]]''.</ref> Racine describes fluctuating states of mind which, in the rapidly mounting tension, are brought abruptly to a crisis from which there is no retreat. The so-called Aristotelian rules happen to suit this type of drama perfectly since they lead the playwright to concentrate the tragic action on those few hours when, after months or years of emotional tension, a new event supervenes and precipitates the catastrophe.

The most striking evidence of Racine's success in fitting his tragedies into this very stringent framework is that, when watching them, the audience ceases to be aware that the unities exist. Not long before he wrote ''[[Phèdre]]'', the same subject had been dealt with by [[Gabriel Gilbert]] and Mathieu Bidar, both of whom had kept Hippolyte off stage after Act IV. Racine, on the other hand, brings him into Act V scene 1, the last line of which is only seventy or eighty lines earlier than Théramène's récit in V 6. In the four minutes which these lines take to recite the young prince has gone out with Théramène, has met, fought and been killed by the monster, and Théramène has come back to announce his master's death. Furthermore, Aricie only leaves the stage at the end of V 3, and therefore in the space of two short scenes has met her dying lover on the seashore and has taken her leave of him! These chronological inconsistencies pass unnoticed in the theatre.

Racine invariably observes the unity of place. A room in Pyrrhus's palace at [[Buthrotum]]; an antechamber separating the apartments of Titus and Bérénice in Rome; Agamemnon's camp at [[Avlida|Aulis]]; an antechamber in the temple at Jerusalem: by choosing such vague and remote settings Racine gives his plays a universal character, and the presentation of conflicting and hesitating states of mind is not hampered by an undue insistence on material surroundings. At times, of course, the unity of place leads to slightly far-fetched meetings: why, for instance, does Pyrrhus come to see Oreste (Act I Sc. 2), rather than the other way around, except to conform to this rule? Lastly, the unity of place necessitates the récit and this again is in complete harmony with Racine's fundamental aims: how would ''[[Andromaque]]'' gain by our being able to see Pyrrhus and his bride approach and enter the temple? The important fact is the effect of Cléone's words upon Hermione. Oreste's relating to Hermione the murder of Pyrrhus is the supreme irony of the play. Théramène's récit describes, in the most memorable and poetic language, an event which would be infinitely less moving if it were to be seen it imperfectly represented upon the stage.

As regards the unity of action, Racine differs sharply from [[William Shakespeare]] in excluding minor plots (compare the parallel themes of blind and unnatural fatherhood and the retribution it invokes, in ''[[King Lear]]'') and in ruling out the comic element. The fact that Act II scene 5 of ''[[Andromaque]]'' or many of the scenes of ''[[Alexandre le Grand]]'' and ''[[Mithridate]]'' have comic undertones is beside the point. Will Andromaque agree to marry Pyrrhus? Will Agamemnon sacrifice Iphigénie? Can Esther persuade her husband to spare the Jews? The plots of ''[[Bajazet (play)|Bajazet]]'', ''[[Phèdre]]'' and ''[[Athalie]]'' are scarcely more complex than the rest.

====Tempo of Racinian tragedy====
Unlike such plays as ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[The Tempest]]'', in which a dramatic first scene precedes the exposition, a Racinian tragedy opens very quietly, but even so in a mood of suspense. In ''[[Andromaque]]'' Pyrrhus's unenviable wavering between Hermione and the eponymous heroine has been going on for a year and has exasperated all three. Up to the time when ''[[Britannicus]]'' begins, Néron has been a good ruler, a faithful disciple of Seneca and Burrhus, and a dutiful son; but he is now beginning to show a spirit of independence. With the introduction of a new element (Oreste's demand that Astyanax should be handed over to the Greeks; Junie's abduction; Abner's unconscious disclosure that the time to proclaim Joas has finally come), an already tense situation becomes, or has become, critical. In a darkening atmosphere, a succession of fluctuating states of mind on the part of the main characters brings us to the resolution – generally in the fourth Act, but not always (''[[Bajazet (play)|Bajazet]]'', ''[[Athalie]]'') – of what by now is an unbearable discordance. Hermione entrusts the killing of Pyrrhus to Oreste; wavers for a moment when the King comes into her presence; then, condemns him with her own mouth. No sooner has Burrhus regained his old ascendancy over Néron, and reconciled him with his half-brother, than Narcisse most skilfully overcomes the emperor's scruples of conscience and sets him on a career of vice of which Britannicus's murder is merely the prelude. By the beginning of Act IV of ''[[Phèdre]]'', Œnone has besmirched Hippolyte's character, and the Queen does nothing during that Act to exculpate him. With the working-out of a situation usually decided by the end of Act IV, the tragedies move to a swift conclusion.