The Complete Plays of Jean Racine, Volume I: Iphigenia, Andromache, Britannicus

Argent, Geoffrey Alan

ISBN 10: 0615124755 / ISBN 13: 9780615124759

Published by Geoffrey Alan Argent, 2003

About this Item

Book may have little to no writing and or underlining inside, and is in overall good condition. Cover may have some cosmetic wear. Fast shipping!

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Complete Plays of Jean Racine, Volume I: Iphigenia, Andromache, Britannicus
• Publisher: Geoffrey Alan Argent
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0615124755
• ISBN 13: 9780615124759
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first volume of what is planned to be a complete traversal in English of Racine's twelve plays, only the third time such a project has been undertaken in the three hundred years since Racine's death. Volume I comprises "Iphigenia," "Andromache" and "Britannicus"; all three are potent blends of passion and politics, explosive in their confrontations between Racine's highly charged, highly volatile characters.

For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has taken a fresh approach: he has rendered these three plays in a verse form that Racine might very well have utilized had he been English, namely, the rhymed "heroic" couplet, which, as Argent powerfully argues in his stimulating Introduction, is particularly well-suited to convey the genius of Racine.

While his versions are remarkably faithful to Racine's textual content and emotional tone, Argent's aim has been to produce, not something that sounds like bad Racine, but something that sounds like good English. To effect this, he has brought to bear on Racine's rhymed alexandrines all the resources of English prosody, allowing their English counterparts to perform according to their own nature, rather than wrenching the verse into a superficial resemblance to the original.

Argent's translations, resuscitating a great and still-viable English verse form, should prove to be the first complete traversal worthy of "the greatest French author" (in the words of Roland Barthes).