The complete plays of Jean Racine. Volume 4, Athaliah / translated into English rhymed couplets with critical notes and commentary by Geoffrey Alan Argent.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Racine, Jean, Author.

Contributor:

Argent, Geoffrey Alan, translator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Racine, Jean, 1639-1699--Translations into English.

Racine, Jean.

Racine, Jean, 1639-1699--Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (119 pages)

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2012]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As Voltaire famously opined, Athaliah, Racine’s last play, is “perhaps the greatest masterwork of the human spirit.” Its formidable antagonists, Athaliah, queen of Judah, and Jehoiada, high priest of the temple of Jerusalem, are engaged in a deadly struggle for dominion: she, fiercely determined to maintain her throne and exterminate the detested race of David; he, no less fiercely determined to overthrow this heathen queen and enthrone the orphan Joash, the scion of the house of David, whom Athaliah believes she slew as an infant ten years earlier. This boy represents the sole hope for the survival of the royal race from which is to spring the Christ. But in this play, even God is more about hate and retribution than about love and mercy.This is the fourth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays—only the third time such a project has been undertaken. For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has rendered these plays in the verse form that Racine might well have used had he been English: namely, the “heroic” couplet. Argent has exploited the couplet’s compressed power and flexibility to produce a work of English literature, a verse drama as gripping in English as Racine’s is in French. Complementing the translation are the illuminating Discussion, intended as much to provoke discussion as to provide it, and the extensive Notes and Commentary, which offer their own fresh and thought-provoking insights.

Contents:

Frontmatter

All Rights Reserved

Please Note

Dedication

contents

Translator’s Note

Athaliah: Discussion

Racine’s Preface

Athaliah

Athaliah: Notes and Commentary

Selected Bibliography

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780271061672

0271061677

9780271055527

0271055529

9780271054001

027105400X

OCLC:

1253314109