![]() ![]() The full title of Racine’s first tragedy is La Thébaïde ou les Frères ennemis (The Saga of Thebes, or The Enemy Brothers). Included in the Notes and Commentary section of this translation are passages that Racine deleted after the first edition and have never before appeared in English. ![]() ![]() The Discussions are not offered as definitive interpretations of these plays, but are intended to stimulate readers to form their own views and to explore further the inexhaustibly rich world of Racine’s plays. While Argent’s translation is faithful to Racine’s text and tone, his overriding intent has been to translate a work of French literature into a work of English literature, substituting for Racine’s rhymed alexandrines (hexameters) the English mode of rhymed iambic pentameters, a verse form particularly well suited to the highly charged urgency of Racine’s drama and the coiled strength of his verse.Ĭomplementing the translations are the illuminating Discussions and the extensive Notes and Commentaries Argent has furnished for each play. ![]() For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has taken a fresh approach: he has rendered these plays in rhymed "heroic" couplets. This is the first volume of a planned translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays-a project undertaken only three times in the three hundred years since Racine’s death. ![]()
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