SOURCE: "Racine," in The Freeman, New York, Vol. VIII, Nos. 187 and 188, October 10 and October 17, 1923, pp. 104-06; 132-33.

An American critic, editor, poet, translator, and historian, Cowley made valuable contributions to contemporary letters with his editions of the works of such American authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Ernest Hemingway, his writings as a literary critic, and his chronicles and criticism of modern American literature. In the following excerpt, Cowley places Racine's technical, stylistic, and thematic accomplishment within the context of his era.

Versailles is one of two perfect expressions of the seventeenth century in France. The other is the tragedies of Jean Racine.

He expressed a definite society and therefore could not exist without it. One can imagine him, with effort, against the background of another age, but rather as politician or general: a man of action, in any case, with a terrible or proud career. It...