BIOGRAPHY

Brereton, Geoffrey. Jean Racine: A Critical Biography. London: Cassell, 1951, 362 p.

Widely regarded to be the best biography of Racine in English.

CRITICISM

Abraham, Claude. Jean Racine. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977, 180 p.

General study of Racine and his plays for the nonspecialist; includes chapters on individual plays and an annotated bibliography of secondary sources.

Auchincloss, Louis. La Gloire: The Roman Empire of Corneille and Racine. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996, 90 p.

Compares the Roman plays of Racine with those of his older theatrical rival, Pierre Corneille.

Barnwell, H. T. The Tragic Drama of Corneille and Racine: An Old Parallel Revisited. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 275 p.

Comparative study that considers Corneille's and Racine's attitudes toward tragedy and history and contrasts their dramatic techniques.

Cloonan, William. Racine's Theatre: The Politics of Love. University, Miss.: Romance Monographs, 1978, 149 p.

Concentrates on the themes of gloire and love in Racine's plays.

Dalhousie French Studies 49 (winter 1999).

Compendium of 25 essays in honor of the tercentenary of Racine's death.

L'Esprit Créateur: Special Issue on Racine 38, no. 2 (summer 1998).

Collection of ten essays in a special issue on Racine.

Hiscock, Andrew. Authority and Desire: Crises of Interpretation in Shakespeare and Racine. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996, 320 p.

Focuses on aspects of political discourse in a selection of Shakespeare's Jacobean dramas and Racine's tragedies.

Knapp, Bettina L. Jean Racine: Mythos and Renewal in Modern Theater. University: University of Alabama Press, 1971, 271 p.

Judicious, comprehensive study of the Racinian theater, with chapters on individual plays.

Melzer, Sarah E. “Myths of Mixture in Phèdre and the Sun King's Assimilation Policy in the New World.” L'Esprit Créateur 38, no. 3 (fall 1998): 1-11.

Demonstrates how Phèdre reflects key political issues of assimilation and national identity relevant to monarchical France.

Parish, Richard. Racine: The Limits of Tragedy. Tübingen, Germany: Papers on Seventeenth-Century Literature, 1993, 268 p.

Argues that Racine places the problematics of tragedy close to the surface of his works.

Reilly, Mary. “Racine's Visions of Violence: The Case of Bajazet, Britannicus and Bérénice.” Nottingham French Studies 38, no. 1 (spring 1999): 12-23.

Seeks to examine the images evoked by offstage violence in Britannicus.

———. “Infernal Visions and the Afterlife in Racinian Tragedy.” Nottingham French Studies 42, no. 2 (autumn 2003): 1-11.

Explores Racine's unorthodox treatment of death in his tragedies.

———. “The Moral Perspective in Racinian Tragedy.” Neophilologus 88, no. 1 (January 2004): 33-41.

Examines some problematic areas of what the critic views as the distorted moral vision in Racine's works, scrutinizing the use of ideas and language about sin, guilt, punishment, forgiveness, confession, shame, and remorse in their linguistic and dramatic contexts.

Seventeenth-Century French Studies 22 (2000).

Special issue on Racine that contains essays in English and French, with topics ranging from punctuation and capitalization in the first editions of his plays to themes of war and commerce in the tragedies.

Swinden, Patrick. “Translating Racine.” Comparative Literature 49, no. 3 (summer 1997): 209-26.

Considers why it is impossible to even approximate in English the effect of Racine's French.

Tobin, Ronald W. Jean Racine Revisited. Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1999, 195 p.

Detailed biographical-critical study; includes an annotated bibliography of secondary sources.

———, ed. Racine et/ou le classicisme. Tübingen, Germany: Narr, 2001, 505 p.

Collection of thirty-three essays in French and English covering a wide range of topics, from Racine's dramaturgy to his views on history, from his concerns with myth and religion to the classical influences in his work.

Turnell, Martin. Jean Racine: Dramatist. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972, 370 p.

Popular study of Racine that derides more academic approaches.

Additional coverage of Racine's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Thomson Gale: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 268; DISCovering Authors 3.0; DISCovering Authors: British Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-studied Authors Module; European Writers, Vol. 3; Guide to French Literature: Beginnings to 1789; Literary Movements for Students, Vol. 1; Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 28; Literature Resource Center; Reference Guide to World Literature, Eds. 2, 3; and Twayne's World Authors.