A BOOK OF THE MOMENT
RACINE REVEALED [COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE New York Times.]
The Life Racine. By Mary Duclaux (A. Mary F. Robinson).
(Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)
HERE is an admirable example of the critic's art—thd art of interpretation. Mme. Duclaux reveals to us the true Racine and makes us understand not only the man but his poetry.
It is in a certain sense very easy to enjoy Racine. His verse is so attractive in sound, his gift of verbal expression so easy and yet so distinguished, his clarity of vision so assured, that no one who is at all capable of catching fire at poetry can fail to be captivated by his tragedies. He is without a rival in the science of awakening the emotions. He can play on our feelings and draw forth pleasure or pain from us, the tears of happiness or the tears of sorrow, just as some master of the orchestra does from the instruments in front of him and the men and women behind him. As his baton rises or falls our heart-beats are controlled.
But Racine is no mere enchanter. Andromache's immedie- able wound, Roxana's fiery heart; Titus's self-immolation Nero's dreadful metardrysic of love, Eripliele's abasement: Joad's scorn of tyrants, the politic ruthlessness of Acomat, and the manly sincerity and innocence of Hippolytus are one and all depicted with a mixture of power and grace that is beyond commendation. Yet in abandoning ourselves to the charm we have by no means sounded the Poet's full depths of pathos, of wisdom, and of comprehension. In him there is an ultimate capacity for analysing human nature and human actions, and for making clear the mysterious forces that raise men up on high and then cast them down, that bring a canker to the rose, that bruik the soul beyond remedy, that divide lovers and friends, that bring down a curse on purity of motive while they reward coldness, cruelty, and the shameful wiles of the flatterer and perjurer.
A fully equipped, almost a perfect, interpreter, not merely for English men and women, but for all lovers of verse, is obtained by Racine in Mme. Duclaux—English by blood, French by education and adoption, and herself a poet. Above all, she is the possessor of a brain finely touched to fine issues, She guides us into the inner recesses of Racine's mind and reveals to us things otherwise dark and strange. But she does this with no display of the apparatus criticise. She has the power, but not the show, of art. Besides, she finds her medium of exposition not in abstract theories, or in tedious generaliza- tions, but in the facts of the poet's life. We understand Racine's poetry because we have been made to understand the man and how and why he chose his special way of existence. It was no smooth, sequestered vale along which the Poet kept the noiseless tenor of his way, but a narrow, .hazardous footpath by the edge of a volcanic crater in per- petual eruption—a way haunted by sulphurous flames and showers of stones, red-hot lava, ashes and dust.
The first thing to remember about the epoch of Louis XIV and of Racine—they were of about the same age, though the King's life was the longer by some dozen years—is the existence of a strong strain of real Puritanism in French Catholicism. The Jansenists had many traits in common with such men as Cromwell, Milton, and even George Fox. Penn would have adored Port-Royal. One of these traits was a resolute refusal to regard their consciences as well as their bodies as always at the command of the head of the State. Therefore, though the Jansenists were loyal to the Bourbons, they were not prepared to hold that all royal decrees were God- given.
Now it chanced that Racine was born and bred a Jansenist. It is true that he revolted during his early manhood from the hard, ascetic determinism of Arnauld and the Port- Royalists, led a life of sensual pleasure in the Parisian Bohemia of his day, and adored the Red Soleil with what was apparently a sordid exhibition of jure divino Royalism. Yet during his servile and ignominious attendances at Versailles as Royal Historiographer and Gentleman-in-Waiting he kept alive the flame of Puritanism kindled in his boyhood at Port-Royal. And it was not merely the flame of religion. He had also imbibed at Port-Royal and never wholly forgotten the liberalism of the French Puritans. They, like our reformed ascetics, had a deep sense of sympathy for the poor and the oppressed. They were, indeed, even more harried than the poor. They were not allowed to worship God by their own simple way of life. People who lived in huts almost at the King's gates, as did some of the Jansenist solitaries or hermits. cast a kind of automatic aspersion on the very different way of life pursued at Versailles, or even at Manly. If they were on the right path, how about the King's path ? It was very near ieee maieste at the end of the seventeenth century to be a pious hermit !
Curiously enough, or perhaps I should rather say naturally enough, it was this suppressed inner light which in the end ruined Racine and made the selfish, cold-hearted King desert one of the very few men whom up till that time he had always treated with a consideration that was virtually unique.
It was not, as was once believed, because Racine had talked about Scarron, Mme. de Maintenon's first husband, when " Oh, no ! We never mention him " was the strictest rule at Court. It was because .Racine placed in the hands of the King's unacknowledged wife a memorandum on the miseries of the poor caused by an epoch of great wars and the gross extravagances of the Court.
The lady was not, however, guilty of betraying the poet. The King caught her in the act of reading the memorandum and forced her to say who was the writer. The King, as he read it, made a bitter comment upon Racine's presumption : " Because he's a great poet, does he fancy he's fit to be a Minister of State ? " These words reported to Racine broke his spirit. The King did not punish him, or banish him, or take away his Court appointments. But Racine, who could not stand criticism even from his enemies, though not killed was heartbroken by this incident.
Though one would have liked him to stand up to Louis and to have taken his own part, we cannot but admire the courage of his criticism. Nor was his memorandum all. In Athalie he puts into the mouth of Joad, the High Priest, words about the results of autocratic rule which burn with the authentic flame of a fearless righteousness. Never was the risk of the corruption of the Royal heart by flatterers and perjurers more poignantly exposed. Yet, strange to say, Louis XIV loved Racine's last play and had it privately acted before him again and again. We can only suppose that the great egotist was too much blinded by his own flatterers to deem it possible that the lines could apply to him !
The whole episode is told with consummate skill by Mme. Duclaux and should be read in full. I recommend her delight- ful book to all lovers of good literature. There is not a dull J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
Previous page
