In two of his most famous plays, Britannicus and Berenice, Racine depicts the tragedies of characters trapped by the ideals, desires, and cruelties of ancient Rome. This international collection of essays deploys cutting-edge research to illuminate the plays and their contexts.
For Racine, Rome is more than a location, it is a set of values and traditions, a space of opportunity and oppression. The contributors to this volume examine Racine’s stagecraft, his exploration of time and space, sound and silence, and the ways in which he develops his own distinctive understanding of tragedy. The reception of his plays by contemporaries and subsequent generations also features. In Racine’s hands, Rome becomes a state of mind, haunted by both past and future.