SOURCE: "Discords and Resolutions," in Racine and Poetic Tragedy, translated by P. Mansell Jones, 1955. Reprint by Manchester University Press, 1962, pp. 27-46.

In the following excerpt from an English-language edition of a volume originally published in French in 1951, Vinaver examines Racine's tragic poetry, particularly its employment in Andromaque, Brittanicus, Bajazet, Bérénice, and Mithridate.

It would be unjust to reproach the contemporaries of Racine with the small account they made of his originality. Belonging to an epoch which believed less in genius than in talent, they could not pay him greater homage than to place him by common accord in the rank of the worthiest craftsmen of the regular theatre. In the funeral oration which he pronounced at the Academy on the 27th of June 1699, Valincour with his fine sagacity did indeed recognize in the author of Andromaque and Phèdre the merit of having opened 'new roads'...