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Time, Space, And Symbol in Iphigênie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John C. Lapp
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Extract

Racine is generally conceded to have observed more closely than - any of his contemporaries the basic elements of the classic framework, the three unities. And in a sense, any tragic structure of Racine's reveals a number of constants: there are five acts, composed of scenes “linked” in various ways, the bienséances rule supreme, the unities are maintained. The playwright himself readily discussed, in the polemics he thinly disguised as prefaces, such structural matters as characterization and the modification of sources. A tendency, then, to dismiss Racinian structure as highly stylized, and to accept the often disingenuous revelations of the prefaces may have prevented critics from probing deeply into Racine's ordering of his materials. This deeper probing would require, I believe, our going beyond the mere constatation of various structural devices to seek out their broader implications for Racinian tragedy. Such an examination would have value even if it did no more than reveal more explicitly something one has always vaguely felt: that Racine's unity transcends the conventional unities, that the harmony of all the elements in his works, their essential fusion, is the source of their power.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 6 , December 1951 , pp. 1023 - 1032
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

Note 1 in page 1023 E.g., R. C. Knight, “Racine was the more easily able to accept the system since he had never known any other. He practically never refers to the Unities, and then obliquely ...” MLR, XXXV (1940), 29.

Note 2 in page 1023 Le Vocabulaire de Racine (Paris: Droz, 1946), p. 132.

Note 3 in page 1023 The parallels with Rotrou's Iphigênie are insignificant. See H. C. Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century (Johns Hopkins Univ., 1929–42), iv,i,89.

Note 4 in page 1024 Œuvres de Racine, iii, 150–158.

Note 5 in page 1025 Cf. H. Hatzfeld, “A Clarification of the Baroque Problem in the Romance Literatures,” CL, i (1949), 130–131.

Note 6 in page 1025 It is quite possible that the gradual increase in light was shown scenically; the use of light on the stage to indicate the passage of time is mentioned as early as 1641. See J. Schérer, La Dramaturgie classique (Paris: Nizet, 1950), pp. 122–123, and Lancaster, ii, ii, 376.

Note 7 in page 1026 Op. cit., iv, i, 90.

Note 8 in page 1028 S. W. Holsboer, Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre français de 1600 à 1657 (Paris: Droz, 1933), p. 145.

Note 9 in page 1028 Revue Théâtrale, août-sept., 1946, pp. 161–162.

Note 10 in page 1029 Mesnard, iii, 148, n. 1.

Note 11 in page 1029 Lancaster, loc. cit., suggests the first reason, Sarcey the second, writing rather obliquely that this sort of character “n'inspire jamais qu'un certain sentiment de gaieté aimable” (Quarante ans de théâtre, 1900, iii, 217).

Note 12 in page 1029 Op. cit., p. 136.

Note 13 in page 1030 It is on this that Lancaster bases his statement that Iphigênie is Racine's second “outdoor play.” In a strict sense, this is so, yet in Alexandre the references to the opposing camp, far from suggesting the spaces in which the drama unfolds, simply form the basis of an elaborate conceit in which the conquest of Cléofile's heart is compared to Alexandre's victory over the forces fighting on her side:

On voit en même champ vos drapeaux et les nôtres:
De ses retranchements il découvre les vôtres, etc.

Note 14 in page 1030 Le Temps humain (Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1949), p. 145. I had not seen Poulet's remarkable work before forming similar conclusions concerning Racine's use of pre- and post-dramatic time. Poulet is, however, more concerned with philosophical than with dramatical implications.

Note 15 in page 1030 Cf. Cahen, p. 96: “Dans [La Thébaïdé] dont l'action se passe à une époque fabuleuse, on ne révèle presque aucun mot évoquant les dieux de la fable ou les croyances mythologiques.”

Note 16 in page 1031 Situations II (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), p. 189.

Note 17 in page 1032 P. Lavedan, Dictionnaire de la mythologie et des antiquités grecques et romaines, p. 630, cit. Cahen, op. cit., p. 107.