SOURCE: "Approach to Racine," in Jean Racine: Dramatist, Hamish Hamilton, 1972, pp. 3-25.

Turnell has written widely on French literature and has made significant translations of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Guy de Maupassant, Blaise Pascal, and Paul Valèry. In the following excerpt, he quotes several critics contra Racine, using them as a springboard to his thesis that "when properly performed, Racine is still the greatest French tragic dramatist" and that the negative pronouncements of Racine's critics speak more to the issue of access than to that of dramatic accomplishment.

'Of all our authors', François Mauriac once said, 'Racine is one of the least accessible to the peoples of other countries'.

Racine presents special difficulties for foreigners. They are by no means confined to foreigners. There are at present two generally accepted approaches to the French classic dramatists. You can either wipe away the veneer which has...