Style
The quality of Racine's poetry is perhaps his greatest contribution to French literature. His use of the alexandrine poetic line is considered exceptional in its harmony, simplicity and elegance.
Racine's work faced many criticisms from his contemporaries. One was the lack of historic veracity in plays such as Britannicus (1668) and Mithridate (1673). Racine was quick to point out that his greatest critics- his rival dramatists- were among the biggest offenders in this respect. Another major criticism levelled at him was the lack of incident in his tragedy Bérénice (1670). Racine's response was that the greatest tragedy does not necessarily consist in bloodshed and death.
Read more about this topic: Jean Racine
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)