Phaedra, By Racine

By Richard Wilbur

A brilliant translation of one of the most influential works of French theater, Phaedra is rendered into movingly expressive verse by the Pulitzer Prize–winning translator Richard Wilbur.

Jean Racine’s last and greatest tragedy is based on a legend that has intrigued dramatists as far back as Euripides and Seneca. Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, the heroic king of Athens, is consumed with an illicit passion for Hippolytus, her stepson.

Given word that her husband is dead, she confesses her love for Hippolytus and is rebuffed. When Theseus turns out to be alive after all, Phaedra connives in a lie to convince her husband that it was Hippolytus who attempted to seduce her. The stage is set for fury and grief, guilt and remorse.

In his seventeenth-century interpretation, Racine replaced the ornate, stylized tragedy based on classic Greek form with human-scale characters and actions convincingly motivated by human emotions. Acclaimed translator Richard Wilbur describes in his lucid, informed introduction the method by which he remained faithful to Racine’s form and intention. The result is a triumph of translation, poetry, and theater.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 4, 1987
• ISBN: 9780547563978

Richard Wilbur

RICHARD WILBUR, one of America’s most beloved poets, has served as poet laureate of the United States. He has received the National Book Award, two Pulitzer Prizes, the National Arts Club medal of honor for literature, and a number of translation prizes, including two Bollingen Prizes and two awards from PEN.

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Reviews for Phaedra, By Racine

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a powerful tragedy about forbidden love! And what a difference reading this Richard Wilbur translation made in my enjoyment (I had read/listened to the public domain translation a few weeks ago).And Phaedra makes such a contrast to whiny Gwenevere in The Mists of Avalon (which I recently finished); like Gwenevere she knows her love to be impossible but she doesn't blame either the man (Hippolytes) or her husband (Theseus). And even in her jealous rage, she doesn't really blame Aricia either.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is stated in the introduction to Phèdre that Racine did not intend to challenge any of the conventions to playwriting with this work, but merely write the strongest possible play while adhering to the established structure of five act dramatic tragedies. Because of this, the play Phèdre by Racine and Hippolytus by Euripides are similar, not only in subject matter, but in structure as well, despite being written over 2,000 years apart. Unfortunately for Racine, this allows a direct comparison between the plays, and for me Hippolytus easily comes out on top.

Racine makes Phèdre a longer play, focusing on the passions that are driving the characters, and adds a plotline where Hippolytus and Aricia fall in love and attempt to elope. The longer length means that things that happened in the heat of the moment in Euripides’ play (and made sense in that context) are stretched over a longer span of time (and therefore defy common-sense). Euripides’ Theseus believes the accusations against his son only when he finds a note alleging them clutched in the cold hand of his wife, who has just killed herself. In a rage, and with his wife’s suicide putting her accusations almost beyond reproach, he curses his son and seals his fate. Racine’s Theseus believes accusations brought against his son by his wife’s nurse, and holds onto them stubbornly while one character after another tells him the accusations are false. “Can nothing clear your mind of your mistake?” asks Hippolytus. Obviously not, for the sake of the story, but such a refusal does strain credulity. Racine also has characters take other actions that aren’t very believable, and his commitment to making his characters voice their motivations draws attention to just how unbelievable these actions are. Toward the end of the play Hippolytus states “[l]et us trust to Heav'n my vindication, for the gods are just.” No they aren’t, and Hippolytus should know this based on the earlier parts of the play (and nowhere is Hippolytus previously portrayed as stupid or naïve). Euripides would never have written such a nonsense and cliché line.

The Hippolytus-Aricia subplot must have been added as a crowd-pleaser, because it adds little to the story. There are thousands of plays about forbidden romance, death separating young lovers, and everything else this plotline does, and it distracts from the play’s portrayal of a woman’s love spurned and a father harboring such rage for his son that he calls on the gods to kill him. Alicia’s introduction changes Phaedra’s actions to ones of jealousy just as much as uncontrollable passion, and thus waters down an interesting character. In general Phèdre does a disservice to the character Phaedra, giving many of the key actions to her nurse instead of having Phaedra perform them herself. It is the nurse Oenone who makes the accusations against Hippolytus, which absolves Phaedra of blame in his death but also turns her character into one doomed always to react and never to act of her own volition.

Euripides’ take on this tale is the better one, and is one of his strongest plays. Comparatively, Phèdre is less impressive, and despite Racine’s attempt to imbue the characters with uncontrollable passion, in fact he turns them duller than they had been for the 2,000 years before him. It’s not bad, just not as good as the classic version.

[nosajeel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Greek tragedy by Racine, a web of interlocking and tragic loves and misunderstandings propels this play from beginning to end. Although I enjoyed Andromache more, this was also a pleasure from beginning to end. And like Andromache, added greater psychological depth and complexity to characters caught in what would otherwise appear to be the inevitably unfolding clockwork gears of their fates.

[librarianbryan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Made me want to read more Ted Hughes. Never thought I would say that.

[wrmjr66 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Racine's tragic dramatization of the Theseus-Phaedra myth is very classical in form and style. He reads more like a Jonsonian tragedian than a Shakespearean one. The play is full of long speeches of florid, classical language, and all of the real action in the play occurs off-stage. Still, the emotion of the main characters--Phaedra, Theseus and Hyppolitus--shines through the language and brings the characters to life. The more minor characters like Phaedra's maid are less well drawn (a weakness in this play because Phaedra's maid is the catalyst for much of the language). I enjoyed the play well enough to seek out other works by Racine.

[snat_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let's see: thwarted love, betrayal, implied incest, heinous lies, father-son love triangle with wife/stepmother, and a whole lot of death at the end. Um, yeah, that's the recipe for a pretty awesome story. Phaedra, married to Theseus, has always nurtured a secret love for his son, Hippolytus. When she receives news that Theseus is dead, she finally confesses her love to Hippolytus, who is in love with Aricia and is disgusted by his step-mother's advances. But, hey, guess what? Theseus isn't dead and returns just in time for all Hades to break loose . . .Soap operas have nothing on ancient Greek drama. Plus, on All My Children, you never get a half bull/half dragon sea beastie sent by Neptune to torch our hero into a crispy critter before his horses go mad, crash the chariot, and then drag him to death.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely hilarious modern translation (performed in NY) of a Frenchman's rendition of the Greek tragedy. Each main character has one exceptional part: Aricia, Hipplytus, Phedre, and Theseus. The story of Hippolytus' death is told very clearly relative to the Greek, with Neptune coming out of the sea after Hippolytus slays the beast.