Jean Racine

Jean Racine created plays in the classical Greek tradition of Sophocles and Euripides, adhering to the unities of time and place and often drawing on Greek subjects. But his characters intentionally lacked the monumentality found in ancient Greek works, or for that matter in the plays of his older contemporary Pierre Corneille. Racine's characters got into trouble through their deep passions, but otherwise their flaws -- vacillation, indecision, trepidation, selfishness -- were quite ordinary. His mature plays became instant classics and served as the basis of many operas in t...