Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction: Racine's Imagined Rome / Nicholas Hammond and Paul Hammond -- 1 Britannicus et Bérénice  : tragédies aristotéliciennes ? / Tristan Alonge -- 2 Britannicus , the Tragic Family, and the Problem of the Hero / John D. Lyons -- 3 Stones Wrapped in String: The Paths Not Taken in Racine's Bérénice / Paul Hammond -- 4 'Mille bruits': Listening to Britannicus / Nicholas Hammond -- 5 Noises Off? Bérénice 's Echo Chamber / Joseph Harris -- 6 Le public fragmenté de Titus : la métaphore théâtrale dans Bérénice / Delphine Calle -- 7 Bérénice : Disoriented in Rome / John D. Lyons -- 8 Staging Britannicus and Bérénice : Problems in Spatial Dynamics / Michael Hawcroft -- 9 Naissance des monstres : le mal et ses doubles dans Britannicus / Tony Gheeraert -- 10 Mendacity in Racine's Britannicus / Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde -- 11 'D'un voile d'amitié j'ai couvert mon amour': Homoerotic Subtexts in Racine's Bérénice / Paul Scott -- 12 Bérénice : Racine between Corneille and Barthes / Michael Moriarty -- 13 La Bataille des Bérénice  : une concurrence repensée / Hélène Bilis -- 14 Pradon and the 'Parodie de Bérénice ' / Jan Clarke -- 15 Painting and Silence: Racine and His Classical Sources for Britannicus and Bérénice / Susan Reynolds -- 16 'If Neither Faith nor Tears nor Means Can Move': Translating Emotion from Racine's Bérénice (1670) to Otway's Titus and Berenice (1676) / Suzanne Jones -- 17 The Place of Breath in Alan Hollinghurst's Berenice / Denis Flannery -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Index of Themes.

In two of his most famous plays, Britannicus and Bérénice , Racine depicts the tragedies of characters trapped by the ideals, desires, and cruelties of ancient Rome. This international collection of essays deploys cutting-edge research to illuminate the plays and their contexts. For Racine, Rome is more than a location, it is a set of values and traditions, a space of opportunity and oppression. The contributors to this volume examine Racine's stagecraft, his exploration of time and space, sound and silence, and the ways in which he develops his own distinctive understanding of tragedy. The reception of his plays by contemporaries and subsequent generations also features. In Racine's hands, Rome becomes a state of mind, haunted by both past and future. This book's dedicatee, Richard Parish, passed away on January 1st 2022, just before publication. We would like to dedicate this collection of essays to his memory.

English, French.

Description based on print version record.