In this extract from Racine’s Phèdre, the heroine, carried away by anxiety for her own child and believing that her husband has died, confesses her love to her stepson, Hippolytus. The immediate source of classical inspiration is Greek more than Latin – the Hippolytus of the Athenian dramatist Euripides – but Racine also mentions in his introduction the Latin drama, Phaedra, written by the first-century Roman writer Seneca, as well as referring to what Virgil had to say about the myth.
The scene is one of the most famous in French theatre and gave the actress Sarah Bernhardt some of her greatest triumphs. It was also an important influence on later writers, including, in the 20th century, Marcel Proust. It appears several times in his great novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu: first as an example of how hard it can be for experience to live up to high expectations, and later to illustrate the power of a great artist to transcend. Later on, the novel’s narrator ponders it as an example of unattainable love: ironically, he learns shortly afterwards that the mistress he hoped was returning to him has died.
See a portrait of Racine in the poet page here. The reader is Olivia Chapman.
