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Racine: Athalie (1691)

Racine: Athalie (1691). Religion and the theatre: tensions. See Henry Phillips, Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge, CUP, 1997). Religious influences. Jesuit Movement

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Racine: Athalie (1691)

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  1. Racine: Athalie (1691)

  2. Religion and the theatre: tensions See Henry Phillips, Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge, CUP, 1997)

  3. Religious influences Jesuit Movement • Powerful and political; thought by some to be too worldly… casuistic (attacked by Pascal in the Lettres provinciales, 1656 - 57) • Major educator in France Jansenism • Focus on the individual’s weakness and need for grace (similarities with Protestantism) • Also founded schools: Port-Royal • Did not approve of theatre (too worldly)

  4. Racine after Phèdre • Historiographer to the king (1677ff) • Wrote libretti and court entertainments

  5. Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691) • Written for girl’s school (Saint-Cyr), founded in 1686 by Mme de Maintenon. • Similar to plays written by Jesuit schoolmasters (drama with musical interludes)

  6. Athalie: sources and influences • 2 Kings 11 • 2 Chronicles 22 – 23 • Euripedes, Io • Sophocles, Electra and Oedipus Rex. • Greek tragic drama: use of chorus

  7. Forces of Baal in the play • Athalie = daughter of Jezabel and ruler of Judah (Jewish tribe of Judah subjugated by Athalie at the time of the play: see ). • Mathan = high priest of Baal: v. influential over Athalie.

  8. Forces of Baal mentioned in the play… • Joram: descendent of of house of Judah. Converted by Athalie to worship of Baal • Okosias: son of Athalie.Continued worship of Baal and defiance of God of Jews (Yahweh). Killed by Yahweh. • Achab and Jezebel, Athalie's parents. Also killed by Yahweh.

  9. Forces of House of Judah (Jewish) • Josabet: daughter of Joram (Athalie’s husband) by a previous marriage. • Joad: Josabet’s husband. High priest of temple. • Joas: surviving son of Okosias and Athalie’s grandson. Sole descendent of the line of David. He was hidden in temple for period of about 6 years. Racine has him aged 9 when he comes to throne (bible speaks of 7 yr old).

  10. Paternal forces in the play • Yahweh • Joad • Abner • Mathan

  11. Wet nurse Josabet Athalie Jézabel Maternal forces in the play

  12. The child • Eliacin / Joas • Zacharie • Salomith • Athalie

  13. Charles-Antoine Coypel, "Athalie interrogeant Joas", 1741, huile sur toile, 129 x 163 cmMusée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

  14. Odette de Mourgues, Racine, or, The triumph of relevance (London : Cambridge U.P, 1967). • 'in the tragic pattern God appears cruel,unfair and moved by an arbitrary wish to destroy Athalie'.

  15. The child: embodiment of salvation or political pawn? Athalie, à Josabet: Sa mémoire est fidèle, et dans tout ce qu'il dit De vous et de Joad je reconnais l'esprit. Voilà comme, infectant cette simple jeunesse, Vous employez tous deux le calme où je vous laisse. Vous cultivez déjà leur haine et leur fureur; Vous ne leur prononcez mon nom qu'avec horreur. Josabet Peut-on de nos maleurs leur dérober l'histoire? Tout l'univers les sait; vous même en faites gloire. Etc…

  16. The child: embodiment of salvation or political pawn? • Helen Bates McDermott,‘Matricide and Filicide in Racine’s Athalie’, Symposium, 38 (1984), 56 - 69 • . 'The tragedy of Athalie lies in the sacrifice of the female/child (that which defies the Law) to the male/parent (the Law).’ (61)

  17. The child: embodiment of salvation or political pawn? • Nicolas Hammond, ‘Educating Joas: The Power of Memory in Athalie’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies 22 (2000), 107 –14. • ‘Whereas Josabet accuses Athalie of using their common history to achieve personal glory, the same accusation can justifiably be levelled at Joad. […] Joad and Athalie use their surprisingly similar image of their respective Gods as weapons to assert political and personal power over each other.’ (112)

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