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Concept
Phèdre
Summary
Phèdre (fɛdʁ; originally Phèdre et Hippolyte) is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
With Phèdre, Racine chose once more a subject from Greek mythology, already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets, notably by Euripides in Hippolytus and Seneca in Phaedra.
As a result of an intrigue by the Duchess of Bouillon and other friends of the aging Pierre Corneille, the play was not a success at its première on 1 January 1677 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, home of the royal troupe of actors in Paris. Indeed, a rival group staged a play by the now forgotten playwright Nicolas Pradon on an almost identical theme. After Phèdre, Racine ceased writing plays on secular themes and devoted himself to the service of religion and the king until 1689, when he was commissioned to write Esther by Madame de Maintenon, the morganatic second wife of Louis XIV.
Names of characters in French, with their equivalents in English:
Thésée, or Theseus, King of Athens
Phèdre, or Phaedra, wife of Thésée, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë and sister of Ariadne
Hippolyte, or Hippolytus, son of Thésée and Antiope, Queen of the Amazons
Aricie, or Aricia, princess of the royal blood of Athens
Œnone, or Oenone, nurse and confidante of Phèdre
Théramène, or Theramenes, tutor of Hippolyte
Ismène, confidante of Aricie
Panope, lady-in-waiting to Phèdre
The play is set at the royal court in Troezen, on the Peloponnesus coast in Southern Greece. In the absence of her royal husband Thésée, Phèdre ends by declaring her love to Hippolyte, Thésée's son from a previous marriage.
Act 1. Following Theseus's six-month absence, his son Hippolytus tells his tutor Theramenes of his intention to leave Troezen in search of his father.
When pressed by Theramenes, he reveals that the real motive is his forbidden love for Aricia, sole survivor of the royal house supplanted by Theseus and under a vow of chastity against her will.
Official source
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