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Louis Racine's De la Grace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Louis Racine, born in 1692, elder son of Jean Racine, believing, as he says in his preface to De la Grâce, that “plus les objets sont dignes de l'attention des hommes, plus la poésie est digne de les décrire,” wrote in poetry, while still a young man and a pensionnaire at the Oratoire de Notre Dame des Vertus, his views on Grace, that question which was so long the subject of bitter religious controversies. The date of the publication of De la Grâce has never been generally known, some literary historians such as Vapereau and Lanson having given the date as 1720, and others, such as Beuchot in a note to Voltaire's lines A Monsieur Louis Racine, as 1722. This study will establish the fact that, although the poem was printed in 1720 as most historians agree, there was no public distribution of it until two years later. Moreover, little has been known concerning the composition of the poem. The history of the writing of De la Grâce and of its lot during the period between its initial printing in 1720 and its circulation in 1722 is greatly clarified by evidence in four documents which seem to have been overlooked.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940
References
1 De la Roque, op. cit., p. 76.
2 Cf. my articles in MLN, xl, iii, p. 189, and xlli, i, p. 20.—The Mémoires opine that Voltaire's verses may well be due to author's jealously rather than to any zeal for the doctrines of the Church and questions whether the public, accustomed to being so favorable toward Voltaire, will pardon him the injury he had done to him in attributing errors which he did not defend.
3 De la Roque, op. cit., p. 76.
4 Among the more important differences are: (1) Page 42, l. 93 the 1720 printing reads: L'homme qui pour agir n'attend point ce secours, that of 1722; Le Maidé par un autre secours; (2) Page 53, the passages in italics were in smaller type in the 1722 edition than in the 1720; (3) The two unnumbered pages in the preface of 1720. Cf. following note.
5 Racine explains the additional pages as follows; “Tout ce qui est dans cette page n'est pas de moi. Monsieur Pastel, mon approbateur, fit lui-même cette addition et voulut qu'elle fût imprimée.” This addition to the preface, written by M. Pastel and appearing only in the copies of 1720, is an interesting example of official interference and of censor turned poet.
6 As pointed out above, this word does not occur after 1720.
7 The lines De la fière raison, etc. to voix tremblante are found in later printings.
8 The thought in these three lines is incorporated into the poem, ll. 5–6.