SOURCE: "Racine," in Punch and Judy & Other Essays, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924, pp. 145-73.

During the early twentieth century, Baring—along with G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc—was considered one of the most important Catholic apologists in England. He was proficient in a number of different genres, but is remembered mainly as a novelist. He also wrote several acclaimed books on Russian and French literature and introduced English readers to the works of Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, and other prominent Russian authors. In the following excerpt, Baring discursively examines several of Racine's dramas, particularly Bérénice, while addressing the question of Racine's stat ure as a dramatic poet.

Is Racine the greatest of French poets? I will not be so bold as to answer. There is Molière, and there is La Fontaine. Molière as a dramatist is more universal, and La Fontaine as...