Racine 21 



To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 

 And blown with restless violence round about 

 The pendant world; or to be — worse, than worst — 

 Of those that lawless and incertain thought 

 Imagine howling.22 



Such is a fair sample of the kind of lyricism produced and legiti- 

 matized dramatically by a sudden or violent excitement — in this 

 case the dread of death. 



Now, the characteristics of these two influences — of recollec- 

 tion and excitement both, the one induced by reaction, the other 

 by shock — coalesce and run together inseparably in passion of 

 the Racinean type — which with one and the same motion pro- 

 vokes the spirit of the patient and throws it back upon itself. 

 Just as the expression of elevated ambition is naturally ora- 

 torical, that of love is naturally lyrical. For this reason the 

 " lyric cry," which is almost wholly absent from Corneille, is 

 audible again and again on the lips of Racine's characters, espe- 

 cially his heroines. It is possible that verses as picturesque as 

 the following may be matched elsewhere in French tragedy of 

 the time, though I do not happen to recall any : 



Et la Crete fumant du sang du Minotaure,^^ i 



or this : 



Ariane aux rocher contant ses injustices. 2* 



But in the passages that I have already quoted from Berenice 

 and Phedre the novelty is undeniable : 



lis suivoient sans remords leur penchant amoureux ; 

 Tous les jours se levoient, clairs et sereins pour eux! 

 Et moy, triste rebut de la nature entiere, 

 Je me cachois au jour, je fuyois la lumiere.-^ 



And it seems to me that there is a new note in Monime's appeal 

 to Xiphares at her debut in the second scene of Mithridate : 



22 III, i. 



23 Phedre, I, i. 



24 Phedre, I, i. 



25 Phedre, IV, vi. 



193 



