The Project Gutenberg EBook of Esther, by Jean Racine

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Title: Esther

Author: Jean Racine

Editor: I.H.B. Spiers

Release Date: May 7, 2005 [EBook #15790] [Last updated: February 17, 2012]

Language: French / English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESTHER ***

Produced by Al Haines

Heath's Modern Language Series.

ESTHER

TRAGÉDIE EN TROIS ACTES

PAR

RACINE.

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDICES,

BY

I. H. B. SPIERS,

SENIOR ASSISTANT MASTER WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL,

PHILADELPHIA.

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT, 1891,

By I. H. B. SPIERS.

PREFACE.

The tragedy of Esther commends itself to moderately advanced students of the French language by the fact that it is both the easiest and the shortest masterpiece of French tragic literature. For such students the present edition has been prepared. The text has been modified in all minor points of spelling and grammar so as to conform with present usage. The notes are intended either to make clear such matters of history or grammar as offer any difficulty, or to emphasize that which may be especially instructive from a literary, historical, or grammatical point of view.

The appendix contains, in addition to a brief statement of the rules of French verse, a systematic presentation of quotations from the play illustrating a few of the grammatical points on which experience teaches that the student's knowledge, in spite of grammars, is likely to be vague.

The editor desires to acknowledge gratefully his indebtedness to M. Paul Mesnard's exhaustive work in the Collection des Grands Écrivains de la France, published under the direction of M. Ad. Régnier (Paris, 1865), and also to the excellent editions of Mr. G. Saintsbury (Oxford, 1886), and of Prof. E. S. Joynes (New York, 1882).

I. H. B. SPIERS.

WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA. INTRODUCTION.

1. LIFE OF RACINE.

Jean Racine, unquestionably the most perfect of the French tragic poets, was born in 1639, at La Ferté-Milon, near Paris. He received a sound classical education at Port-Royal des Champs, then a famous centre of religious thought and scholastic learning. At the early age of twenty he was so fortunate as to attract, by an ode in honor of the marriage of King Louis XIV., the favor of that exacting monarch,—a favor which he was to enjoy during forty years. Yet more fortunate in the friendship of Molière, of La Fontaine, and especially of his trusty counsellor, Boileau, he doubtless owed to them his determination to devote himself to dramatic literature.

His first tragedies to be put upon the stage were La Thébaïde (1664) and Alexandre (1665), which gave brilliant promise. In 1667 appeared Andromaque, his first chef-d'oeuvre, which placed him at once in the very front rank by the side of Corneille. From that time forth, until 1677, almost each year was marked by a new triumph. In 1668, he produced his one comedy, Les Plaideurs, a highly successful satire on the Law Courts, in the vein of the "Wasps" of Aristophanes. In 1669, he resumed his tragedies on historical subjects with Britannicus, largely drawn from Tacitus, followed by Bérénice (1670), Bajazet (1672), Mithridate (1673), Iphigénie (1674), and Phèdre (1677), the last two being inspired by Euripides.

Incensed at a literary and artistic cabal, by which a rival play of Phèdre, by Pradon, was momentarily preferred to his own, Racine now withdrew from the stage. Appointed soon after to the not very onerous post of historiographer to the King, he lived for a period of twelve years a retired life in the bosom of his family.

In 1689, at the request of Mme. de Maintenon, the secret wife of Louis XIV., he produced Esther, and in 1691, Athalie, both drawn from the Scriptures and intended for private performance only. Embittered by the indifference with which the latter tragedy was received,—although posterity has pronounced it his masterpiece,—Racine definitely gave up the drama. He died in 1699, after a few years devoted to his Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., his death being hastened by grief at having incurred the King's displeasure on account of a memoir on the misery of the people, which he wrote at the request of Mme. de Maintenon.

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.

Corneille purified both thought and language of the bad taste due to the prevailing Spanish influence. He subordinated the actor to the play, instead of composing, as his predecessors had done, lengthy monologues for mere histrionic display. He did away with absurdly tangled plots, and focussed the interest of tragedy on character. Tragedy thus purified, he made immortal by the strength and elevation of his moral teaching. His principal plays are Le Cid (1636), Cinna (1639), Polyeucte (1640).

The new tragedy shaped by Corneille, Racine carried to its highest perfection of form. Nothing in his plays betokens struggle, innovation, or effort. His is the polished finish of ease and ripeness. Subtle delineation of the passions, profound tenderness, faultlessness of style and expression, distinguish him