Jean Racine

The Complete Plays of Jean Racine

Volume 5: Britannicus

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This is the fifth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine's plays. Geoffrey Alan Argent's translations faithfully convey all the urgency and keen psychological insight of Racine's dramas, and the coiled strength of his verse, while breathing new vigor into the time-honored form of the "heroic" couplet. Complementing this translation are the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary--particularly detailed and extensive for this volume, Britannicus being by far Racine's most historically informed play. Also noteworthy is Argent's reinstatement of an eighty-two-line scene, originally intended to open Act III, that has never before appeared in an English translation of this play. Britannicus, one of Racine's greatest plays, dramatizes the crucial day when Nero--son of Agrippina and stepson of the late emperor Claudius--overcomes his mother, his wife Octavia, his tutors, and his vaunted "three virtuous years" in order to announce his omnipotence. He callously murders his innocent stepbrother, Britannicus, and effectively destroys Britannicus's beloved, the virtuous Junia, as well. Racine may claim, in his first preface, that this tragedy "does not concern itself at all with affairs of the world at large," but nothing could be further from the truth. The tragedy represented in Britannicus is precisely that of the Roman Empire, for in Nero Racine has created a character who embodies the most infamous qualities of that empire -- its cruelty, its depravity, and its refined barbarity.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Seitenzahl: 248
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Oktober 2014
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 222mm x 145mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 486g
• ISBN-13: 9780271064062
• ISBN-10: 0271064064
• Artikelnr.: 41123524

Autorenporträt

Christopher Breslin, a poet and artist in his own right, brings a deep and sensitive appreciation for history and language to all his work. Born and raised in Connecticut, he studied art in Chicago before dedicating himself to writing and translation. His work on Phaedra combines two subjects that have been life-long passions, Ancient Greece and 17th-Century France, along with a love of performance art and the spoken word. In addition to Phaedra, he has also translated Baudelaire's Spleen of Paris, numerous poems by Renée Vivien and Pierre de Ronsard, and Henri Guillemin's The Engulfed, a biography of Adèle Hugo. He currently lives in Northern Virginia, where he enjoys gardening, nature, and playing the piano.