The Complete Plays of Jean Racine: Volume 3: Iphigenia - Softcover

Racine, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0271048603 ISBN 13: 9780271048604

Publisher: Penn State University Press, 2015

Synopsis

This is the third volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine&;s plays&;only the third time such a project has been undertaken. For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has rendered these plays in the verse form that Racine might well have used had he been English: namely, the &;heroic&; couplet. Argent has exploited the couplet&;s compressed power and flexibility to produce a work of English literature, a verse drama as gripping in English as Racine&;s is in French.

Complementing the translation are the illuminating Discussion, intended as much to provoke discussion as to provide it, and the extensive Notes and Commentary, which offer their own fresh and thought-provoking insights.

In Iphigenia, his ninth play, Racine returns to Greek myth for the first time since Andromache. To Euripides&;s version of the tale he adds a love interest between Iphigenia and Achilles. And dissatisfied with the earlier resolutions of the Iphigenia myth (her actual death or her eleventh-hour rescue by a dea ex machina), Racine creates a wholly original character, Eriphyle, who, in addition to providing an intriguing new denouement, serves the dual dramatic purpose of triangulating the love interest and galvanizing the wholesome &;family values&; of this play by a jolt of supercharged passion.

About this title

About the Author

Geoffrey Alan Argent is an independent scholar residing in Pennsylvania. He has received a 2011 American Book Award for The Fratricides, the first volume of The Complete Plays of Jean Racine.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271048603
• ISBN 13: 9780271048604
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168