Skip to product information
1 of 1

Ecco

Phaedra, by Racine

Regular price $7.95 USD
Regular price Sale price $7.95 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Title: Phaedra, by Racine
Author: Richard Wilbur
ISBN: 9780156757805
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 1987
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.

R 1641912

Publisher Description:
A brilliant translation of one of the most influential works of French theater, Phaedra is rendered into movingly expressive verse by the Pulitzer Prize-winning translator Richard Wilbur.

Jean Racine's last and greatest tragedy is based on a legend that has intrigued dramatists as far back as Euripides and Seneca. Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, the heroic king of Athens, is consumed with an illicit passion for Hippolytus, her stepson.

Given word that her husband is dead, she confesses her love for Hippolytus and is rebuffed. When Theseus turns out to be alive after all, Phaedra connives in a lie to convince her husband that it was Hippolytus who attempted to seduce her. The stage is set for fury and grief, guilt and remorse.

In his seventeenth-century interpretation, Racine replaced the ornate, stylized tragedy based on classic Greek form with human-scale characters and actions convincingly motivated by human emotions. Acclaimed translator Richard Wilbur describes in his lucid, informed introduction the method by which he remained faithful to Racine's form and intention. The result is a triumph of translation, poetry, and theater.