Sir: Racine is one of France's greatest poets and there
are lines in his various plays that are justly regarded as the apogee of French poetic utterance, notably in Berenice. In Phedre
Ariane, ma soeur! De quel amour blessee, Vous mouriltes aux bords ou vous lutes laissee
is one example among many.
But Racine was also a Jansenist, raised in the milieu and imbued with the Manichean doctrine of Jansenism. Although later he left Port-Royal, the centre of Jansenism, to pursue a career at court (he became Louis XIV's historiographer), he never forgot the rigour of its beliefs: the choice between the world and eternity, the arbitrariness of grace and the predestination of salvation. The more he compromised himself for his career, the more, in his plays, he remained faithful to Jansenist ideas.
Ted Hughes has changed, perhaps wisely, Racine's play into an English play, hence the naturalistic mise-en-scene and acting. Only at the end, when Theramene tells of Hippolyte's atrocious death, Theseus crum- pled against a wall, do we get the tragic stillness and eloquence of Racine. Paradox- ically, it is at this most Racinian of moments that the speech becomes pure Ted Hughes — modern poetry at its most powerful: strong language, vivid imagery and passionate feeling. Wonderful! So C'est Venus tout entiere a sa proie attachee is famous not only for its poetic beauty, but because it expresses the fatalite of love and rings a bell in all of us. Only we would simply say, 'I love him/her — I can't help it!'
Shusha Guppy
8 Shawfield Street, London SW3
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