Complete Plays of Jean Racine:

This is the fifth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine&;s plays. Geoffrey Alan Argent&;s translations faithfully convey all the urgency and keen psychological insight of Racine&;s dramas, and the coiled strength of his verse, while breathing new vigor into the time-honored form of the &;heroic&; couplet.

Complementing this translation are the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary&;particularly detailed and extensive for this volume, Britannicus being by far Racine&;s most historically informed play. Also noteworthy is Argent&;s reinstatement of an eighty-two-line scene, originally intended to open Act III, that has never before appeared in an English translation of this play.

Britannicus, one of Racine&;s greatest plays, dramatizes the crucial day when Nero&;son of Agrippina and stepson of the late emperor Claudius&;overcomes his mother, his wife Octavia, his tutors, and his vaunted &;three virtuous years&; in order to announce his omnipotence. He callously murders his innocent stepbrother, Britannicus, and effectively destroys Britannicus&;s beloved, the virtuous Junia, as well. Racine may claim, in his first preface, that this tragedy &;does not concern itself at all with affairs of the world at large,&; but nothing could be further from the truth. The tragedy represented in Britannicus is precisely that of the Roman Empire, for in Nero Racine has created a character who embodies the most infamous qualities of that empire &; its cruelty, its depravity, and its refined barbarity.