From Publishers Weekly
Auchincloss, who will be 80 next year, is well known as a Park Avenue lawyer who turned to fiction writing and also produced sympathetic appreciations of his favorite writers, like Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. Here, on more ambitious ground, he offers capsule summaries of 14 plays by Corneille and Racine, all dealing with the Roman Empire and points to certain themes involving glory. The resulting very brief but thorny book is best taken as what a reader's bookish grandfather might have come up with after mulling over French playwrights. Auchincloss's statements aren't on a par with the intellectual daring or originality of such previous critics as Roland Barthes, author of On Racine. They often lean more toward straightforward musings that occasionally read like Cliff Notes. When Auchincloss tries to make Racine and Corneille seem less dusty and more contemporary, the most recent historical references he mentions are Hitler and T.S. Eliot's play The Cocktail Party, in its own way as much a period piece now as anything by Corneille. The helter-skelter organization of the book jumps from Corneille to Racine and back again, and Auchincloss's own supposedly literal translations of the verses are often wide of the mark: He translates "extreme douceur" as just plain "sweet" and when Corneille speaks of death having "certain charms" ("des charmes") Auchincloss renders this as: "such an end has only delight." The author's desire to read the French classics might have been better packaged as a personal journal, without the pseudoscholarly trappings. As it is, expert stylistic analysts like Leo Steinberg and Jean Starobinski are vastly better at understanding C. and R.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Midwest Book Review
The author's essays regarding the Roman empire of Corneille and Racine examine texts of two 17th century dramatists whose plays represented classical historical examination. New translations, readings, and observations about these French classics provide step-by-step analysis of both the plays and their historical impact.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a charming collection of elegant essays, one of the twentieth century's leading men of letters turns his vast knowledge and worldly authority to the texts of two seventeenth-century French dramatists. Louis Auchincloss considers sixteen plays by Pierre Corneille (1606-84) and his younger theatrical rival, Jean Racine (1639-99). Musing on the ideas that informed the court of the Sun King and on what classical allusions meant to them, Auchincloss offers thoughtful readings, new translations, and a wealth of shrewd observations about French classic tragedy, passion, self-sacrifice, self-aggrandizement, and civic and military glory. Auchincloss lets the grand voices of Corneille's and Racine's heroes and heroines speak, while calling attention to details and discoveries that illumine aspects of both seventeenth-century and twentieth-century culture. He specifically considers the theme of gloire - the lofty destiny or mission that the hero (and more rarely the heroine) has set for himself and for which he would willingly sacrifice the most passionate romance, closest friendship, or dearest family ties. While gloire is more commonly associated with Corneille than with Racine, Auchincloss demonstrates that these French masters were capable of swapping predilections when it came to the Roman plays.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Auchincloss, who will be 80 next year, is well known as a Park Avenue lawyer who turned to fiction writing and also produced sympathetic appreciations of his favorite writers, like Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. Here, on more ambitious ground, he offers capsule summaries of 14 plays by Corneille and Racine, all dealing with the Roman Empire and points to certain themes involving glory. The resulting very brief but thorny book is best taken as what a reader's bookish grandfather might have come up with after mulling over French playwrights. Auchincloss's statements aren't on a par with the intellectual daring or originality of such previous critics as Roland Barthes, author of On Racine. They often lean more toward straightforward musings that occasionally read like Cliff Notes. When Auchincloss tries to make Racine and Corneille seem less dusty and more contemporary, the most recent historical references he mentions are Hitler and T.S. Eliot's play The Cocktail Party, in its own way as much a period piece now as anything by Corneille. The helter-skelter organization of the book jumps from Corneille to Racine and back again, and Auchincloss's own supposedly literal translations of the verses are often wide of the mark: He translates "extrme douceur" as just plain "sweet" and when Corneille speaks of death having "certain charms" ("des charmes") Auchincloss renders this as: "such an end has only delight." The author's desire to read the French classics might have been better packaged as a personal journal, without the pseudoscholarly trappings. As it is, expert stylistic analysts like Leo Steinberg and Jean Starobinski are vastly better at understanding C. and R.(Nov.)

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