Jean Racine

Jean Racine (1639–1699) was a French dramatist and, with Corneille and Molière, one of the great playwrights of the age of Louis XIV. Orphaned young, he was educated by the Jansenists of Port-Royal, whose severe moral vision marked his work. Beginning with Andromaque in 1667, he wrote a series of tragedies, among them Britannicus, Bérénice, Bajazet, Iphigénie and Phèdre, in which passion destroys lucid, doomed characters within the strict rules of classical tragedy, in alexandrine verse of great purity. After Phèdre he largely withdrew from the theater, became royal historiographer, and later wrote the biblical plays Esther and Athalie.