A devoted husband and father, an adroit but sincere courtier, Racine
has won the regard of posterity by his life as well as its admiration
by his literary genius. As a poet, he was endowed with the purest gift
of expression ever granted to a mind imbued with the works of the
classical writers of Greece and Rome.


2. FRENCH TRAGEDY.

French tragedy is purely a work of art. It does not claim to mirror
Nature in her infinite complexity; it is the professedly artificial
presentment, in the noblest form, of _character_ unfolding itself by
means of one action, as far as possible in one place, and within the
limits of one day. It is bound by other formal and conventional
rules: of versification--such as the alternation of masculine and
feminine pairs of rhymes, and of taste--such as the avoidance of all
"doing of deeds" on the stage (e.g., all fighting and dying take place
behind the scenes) and the grouping of the fewest possible secondary
parts around the one central situation.

There are but three names in the front rank of writers of French
tragedy: Corneille (1606-1684), Racine (1639-1699), and Voltaire
(1694-1778). Their tragic masterpieces cover but one century of time,
from Corneille's _Le Cid_ (1636) to Voltaire's _Mérope_ (1743). Before
these poets, French tragedy had not reached such a degree of perfection
as to be entitled to an identity of its own; after them and their few
feeble imitators, it was merged into a new form, and, as classical
French tragedy, ceased altogether to be.