The Tragedy of Bérénice (1949)

Abstract

Bérénice is, of all Racine’s plays, the one which has called forth most criticisms, even among his most fervent admirers. The subject is unsuitable for tragedy; so say not only Saint-Évremond or ‘son ennemi Boileau’, but Louis Racine, who is moved to laughter by it, Voltaire and La Harpe, who treat it with a condescension bordering on contempt. Renan was almost the only man in the nineteenth century who deeply enjoyed Racine’s favourite tragedy; Sainte-Beuve, in a formula which criticism took up in a universal chorus, could see in it nothing but a ‘ravissante élégie,’ which ranked for him among the poet’s minor works. Even after the Bérénice of Michaut, the first study to give the play the attention it deserves, it remains the most controversia of his tragedies, the one which has given rise to the most contradictory verdicts. The ‘mélodieuse faiblesse’, the ‘comédie de cœur’ of Sainte-Beuve is for Jules Lemaître a drama of heroic will-power, another Polyeucte, and for M. Dubech an essentially political play, in which Rome plays the leading role. But this Roman tragedy, which to Renan appeared profoundly Greek, is for M. Bechtum Le Ducq ‘la Tragédie Française type’; and far from feeling in it the inspiration of Polyeucte, several critics make reservations concerning the ‘héroïsme affiché’ of its characters. To crown all, this Cornelian tragedy manqué is often held up as the Racinian tragedy par excellence. In the eyes of Michaut ‘le chef-d’œuvre profane de Racine’, to M. Brisson it is a ‘prouesse de salon’, a ‘tragédie insincère’, an ‘œuvre factice’.

Sur toute joie, pour 1’étrangler, j’ai fait le bond sourd de la bête féroce.

(A. Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer)