Jean Racine

Jean-Baptiste Racine was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of seventeenth-century France along with Molière and Corneille. He is also an important literary figure in the Western tradition and in world literature. Born in 1639 and dying in 1699, he is remembered above all for his verse tragedies. He was primarily a tragedian, producing such examples of neoclassical perfection as Phedre, Andromaque and Athalie, and he wrote one comedy, Les Plaideurs. His plays displayed his mastery of the twelve-syllable French alexandrine, and his writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed and fury.