Phaedra (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Jean Racine
- First Published: 1677
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: Remote antiquity
- Setting: Troezen, in ancient Greece
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: Folkloric or magical people, Love or romance, Suicide, Incest, Kings, queens, or royalty, Fate or fatalism, Catholics or Catholic Church, Greek or Roman times, Monsters, Greece or Greek people, Jesuits, Princes or princesses, Bronze Age
- Locales: Greece, ancient, Crete, ancient, Troezen, ancient, Scythia, ancient
Characters Discussed
Phèdre (FEE-druh), the second wife of Thésée (Theseus) and daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, the king and queen of Crete. Phèdre is descended from a line of women of unnatural passions. When she realizes that she has fallen in love with her stepson Hippolyte, she fights the double contagion of heredity and passion with courage and in silence until, unable to resist her love, she arranges to have Hippolyte banished from Athens. She bears Thésée’s children, sets up a temple to Venus, and makes sacrifices to appease the wrath of the goddess. When...
[The entire page is 1073 words long]
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