RACINE RE-EXAMINED

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 16

RACINE RE-EXAMINED

A NEW VIEW OF THE PLAYS OF RACINE. By Vera Orgel, Ph.D. Macmillan, 1948. "|. HERE are qualities of insight, of loyalty, and of exhaustive study in this appreciation of Racine that. command a sincere respect, even when, as happens here and there, Dr. Orgel’s ‘views do not compel complete agreement. If one devotes prolonged, concentrated attention to a work of art, one is apt to see in it unsuspected shades of meaning and subtleties of intention. Ruskin, for instance, spent part of every day for nine months in contemplation, on a_ specially erected scaffolding, of frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, and ended by seeing in they things certainly not seen before; nor, with almost equal certainty, thereafter. Thus in a figure of St. Peter he saw an allegorical representation of "Justice without hands," although, as a result of clumsy painting over, the ‘actual figure appears to have three hands. The history of literature is full of examples of the queer effects of such intensive application. Not to mention the ingenuity ex- | pended in extracting the last shred of meaning out of a faulty translation of manuscripts of much;debated authenticity, there is the Baconian heresy with its crop of derivatives; the Homeric theory of Samuel Butler; the brilliant futility of Hockart’s attempt to show that the Histories of Tacitus and other works are a 15th Century fake; misdirections of skill and scholarship that provide an orifice for a point as subtle As Ariachne’s broken web to enter in,

Une recent exampi -an elaborate and rather pointless hoax -serves as a good illustration and is too tempting to resist: an article in the New Statesman of July 17 last sees in Through the Looking Glass, an allegorical prophecy of future world history, the writer hav-

ing "devoted considerable time and labour" to the task, and having found "no work so completely akin to Through the Looking Glass as the apocalyptic and prophetic works of the Bible" . Thus, "the vorpal blade refers surely to the weagon: of propaganda which, wielded by the Press Lords, did so much to discourage and finally to defeat Germany." On the other hand, in what is probably a greater number of cases, concentrated scrutiny has been rewarded by the discovery of previously un-

suspected, illuminating truths. It must at once be said that Dr. Orgel’s ‘ work, though ity may not be considered » to belong to the latter group, yet very definitely has no place in the former. Dr, Orgel’s ‘claim to be presenting a new yiew does not refer to the method she has adopted, the method, much intensified, of every baccalauréat manual,

She takes us through the piays, scene by scene, speech by speech, an ageold method which is also that of the latest analysis of Hamlet: What is new is the minutely detailed thoroughness of the presentation; the unusually copious quotations; and the more or less convincing refutations of many of the disparaging comments accumulated in two centuries and more of.criticism, together with a few adverse criticisms of her own finding on minor details. Racine has in the past been something of an embarrassment to Englishspeaking commentators. French seg Bat have been felt as amounting to a proof of the inferiority of French to English poetry. A comparison with Shakespeare was unthinkable; even Virgil, with whom the French’so often compare Racine, is held». to be a poet of greater stature by so fervent an. admirer of French poetry: as. J. C. Bailey. Yet the comparison holds good in many ways: thejr ~relation to their .fore-runners and to their publics is similar; so is their own poetic development and growing command of their media of expression; most of all, so is the maestria shown by each in conscious self-restraint. Dr. Orgel ‘is not insensitive to the force and beauty of certain passages of Racine; but she thinks of him as "not primarily 4 poet." You, O courteous Mantuan soul, would have understood the. comparison and not disdained to rank as an equal, but it would take an essay of Quarterly dimension to argue the’ point. ,

G.W.

Z.