![]() ![]() Bajazet, Racine's seventh play, first given in 1672, is based on events that had taken place in the Sultan's palace in Istanbul a mere thirty years earlier. Complementing the translation are the illuminating Discussion, intended as much to provoke discussion as to provide it, and the extensive Notes and Commentary, which clarify obscure references, explicate the occasional gnarled conceit, and offer their own fresh and thought-provoking insights. While Argent's translation is faithful to Racine's text and tone, his overriding intent has been to translate a work of French literature into a work of English literature, substituting for Racine's rhymed alexandrines (hexameters) the English mode of rhymed iambic pentameters, a verse form particularly well suited to the highly charged urgency of Racine's drama and the coiled strength of his verse. ![]() ![]() For this new translation, Geoffrey Alan Argent has taken a fresh approach: he has rendered these plays in rhymed "heroic" couplets. This is the second volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine's plays-only the third time such a project has been undertaken in the three hundred years since Racine's death. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |