SOURCE: "Racine," in Contemporary Review, Vol. 156, December 1939, pp. 729-36.

Below, Joubert offers a general essay on the accomplishment and significance of Racine, noting his artistic statements against governmental tyranny.

In a broadcast for French schools dealing with Racine's place in the history of dramatic literature, the lecturer pronounced the significant words: "In spite of Racine's unquestionable superiority as poet and psychologist, the French nation will, during the time of a national crisis, always turn to Corneille." This statement seems to me to represent in a nutshell the historical and aesthetic valuation of the two greatest dramatists of French literature, and at the same time to emphasise the necessity of a comparison between them, without which an appreciation of the younger poet's position as innovator of French dramatic technique would be futile.

Corneille represents artistically and morally—the two terms are inseparable in French drama—the definite end of...