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Thomas Corneille's <i>Ariane</i> and Racine's <i>Phèdre</i>: The Older Sister Strikes Back

1998; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/esp.2010.0021

1931-0234

Richard E. Goodkin,

French Literature and Criticism

Thomas Corneille's Ariane and Racine's Phèdre: The Older Sister Strikes Back Richard E. Goodkin AS ERICA HARTH HAS POINTED OUT, "The contradictions between a decadent feudalism and a nascent capitalism stand out with peculiar sharpness during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, who strengthened French absolutism by centralization and bureaucratization , thus preparing both the rise to power of bourgeois technocrats and a concomitant 'feudal reaction."" Although classical tragedy was, on one level, an essentially aristocratic form, it can also be read as an expression of the contradictions between two distinct ethics associated with these two socioeconomic systems, contradictions that are discernible in the genre's ambivalent representation of inheritance. Tragedy stages two distinct visions of inheritance: on the one hand, a backward -looking, feudalistic view based on primogeniture, that is, the designation of a single predetermined heir to carry on the tradition of the lineage and protect its patrimony; on the other hand, a forward-looking, protocapitalistic view that questions inherited values and does not accept an age-based hierarchy among members of a single generation, but instead allows competition among contemporaries. Each of these visions of inheritance has its advantages and disadvantages: primogeniture facilitates continuity and stability but discourages initiative and enterprise; a more open-ended system of inheritance accords more freedom and possibilities of choice but also greater uncertainty and instability, to the individual as well as the lineage. If French classical tragedy can be seen as an expression of the irreconcilable meeting of these two worldviews—as an example of Hegel's definition of tragedy not as the clash between right and wrong, but rather as the clash between two rights or two conflicting ethics2—two plays that well exemplify this clash are Thomas Corneille's Ariane (1672), a tragedy about the rivalry between Phèdre and her older sister, Ariane, for the love of Thésée, and Jean Racine's Phèdre (1677). My hypothesis is that Ariane and Phèdre can be read in tandem as the tragedy of primogeniture and competition, the tragedy of the older and the younger sister. Ariane records the triumph of the competitive younger sister over the older sister and heir apparent, Ariane, whereas Phèdre depicts the symbolic revenge of the older sister, or at least of the system of entitlement that she embodies from beyond the grave. 60 Summer 1998 Goodkin Ariane tells the story of the two daughters of the Cretan king, Minos, and their shared love for the young Thésée, sent to Crete as a sacrificial victim for the Minotaur. Helped by Ariane to exit from the labyrinth after putting the creature to death, Thésée is then forced to take flight before Minos's wrath, and Ariane, in love with Thésée and in danger of severe punishment by her father, flees with the Greek prince. Thésée, naturally beholden to Ariane for saving his life, promises to marry her, but he is actually in love with her sister, Phèdre. The threesome flees to the island of Naxos, where the local king conveniently becomes smitten with the lovely Ariane. Thésée postpones the wedding , hoping that Ariane will eventually return her new suitor's affections, thus freeing Thésée from his own commitment to her and leaving him free to wed Phèdre. This turn of events does not happen, and the play culminates in Ariane's realization that her sister has betrayed her by fleeing with Thésée, leaving her to fume without even the satisfaction of a confrontation with this sisterly Benedict Arnold. That the question of birth order is not foregrounded in Ariane does not make it any less important to an understanding of the drama. Although we are never told directly that Ariane is the older sister, a clear indication of that fact is given by Ariane, speaking to Thésée: Pour te sauver le jour dont ta rigueur me prive, Ai-je pris à regret le nom de fugitive? La mer, les vents, l'exil, ont-ils pu m'étonner? Te suivre, c'était plus que me voir couronner.... Pour toi, pour m'attacher à ta...