SOURCE: "Racine and Shakespeare: A Common Language," in Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1993, pp. 253-68.

Maskell is the author of Racine: A Theatrical Reading (1991). In the following excerpt from a later work, he compares the theatricality—specifically, the "visual language"—of Shakespeare and Racine.

When writers' names become symbols this can obscure what they actually wrote. Racine and Shakespeare stand in symbolic opposition. Shakespeare represents full-blooded theatricality; Racine stands for an abstract disembodied form of tragedy. This opposition deserves to be challenged. Of course there are substantial differences between Racine and Shakespeare. Racine has no witches, no gravediggers, no storms, no battles on stage. Racine's tragedies have no low-life subplots and no deliberate excursions into the comic register. Furthermore Shakespeare's exuberant poetry is far removed from Racine's laconic formality. But these differences should not overshadow the similarities. Their theatrical relationship can be better understood by considering what they...