SOURCE: Stone, Harriet. “Marking Time: Memorializing History in Athalie.” L'Esprit Créateur 38, no. 2 (summer 1998): 95-104.

In the following essay, Stone examines the use and treatment of memory in Athalie.

Athalie marks the limit of Racine's theatrical career. The play commemorates the historic end point of his dramatic efforts, the moment of rupture that catapults him into posterity as the distinguished author of a corpus now closed, a corpus forever identified by precisely twelve works. In Athalie, moreover, all of Racine's earlier plays continue to echo. Like Astyanax, Joas survives thanks to the efforts of those who revere what has come before. The son's inheritance of the father's place reflects society's respect for the law of succession as it ties son to father, present to past, the tensions of the here and now to a glorious heritage embraced by divine providence. Society conserves these children through its fidelity to...