SOURCE: "Racine," in Portraits of the Seventeenth Century, Historic and Literary, translated by Katharine P. Wormeley, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, pp. 283-314.

Sainte-Beuve is considered the foremost French literary critic of the nineteenth century. Of his extensive body of critical writings, the best known are his "lundis"—weekly newspaper articles which appeared over a period of several decades, in which he displayed his knowledge of literature and history. While Sainte-Beuve began his career as a champion of Romanticism, he eventually formulated a psychological method of criticism. Asserting that the critic cannot separate a work of literature from the artist and from the artist's historical milieu, Sainte-Beuve considered an author's life and character integral to the comprehension of his work. In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in 1855, he surveys the career of Racine, offering high praise for his overall accomplishment, especially the religious dramas Esther and...