ra-sen', (1639-1699), a French poet, regarded by many as the greatest tragic dramatist of France. He was born at La Ferte Milon. He was early left an orphan and was brought up by his grandparents. He was educated at the College de Beauvais, a grammar school in the town of that name, at Port Royal, and at the College d'Harcourt. At Port Royal he received thorough training in the classics, and from the first his tastes seemed to lie wholly in the direction of literature. He showed talents which won the admiration of his instructors, but which, coupled with his love of poetry and his dislike for anything that savored of asceticism, caused the good friends of the abbey to feel anxiety for his future. His first reputation was won by an ode for the marriage of Louis XIV, entitled Les Nymphes de la Seine. For this he received a small pension, and for some time after leaving the College d'Harcourt he led a somewhat loose and reckless life. He was induced finally to attempt the study of theology with an uncle. This was an utter failure, and in 1662 the young man returned to Paris and began to devote himself to dramatic literature, having meanwhile made the acquaintance of Boileau and Moliere. Racine's first dramas seem to have been feeble imitations of Corneille, who advised him to attempt no more tragedy. Racine paid no heed to this advice, and in 1667 Andromaque appeared and produced a powerful effect. "The poet had discovered," Botta tells us, "that sympathy was a more powerful source of tragic effect than admiration, and he accordingly employed the powers of his genius in a truthful expression of feeling and character, and a thrilling alternation of hope and fear, anger and pity." For several years Racine's productions followed each other rapidly. At the suggestion of Henrietta of England, Corneille and Racine, each unknown to the other, wrote a tragedy on the subject of Berenice. Corneille failed; Racine was successful. Phedre was the last and the best of Racine's regular tragedies. It was presented in 1677. The poet's enemies arranged for a rival, Pradon, to write on the same subject. Racine's friends rallied to his support, but his enemies were powerful. Doubtless both factions resorted to all sorts of tricks and intrigues. The opposition Phedre won. It was a great success, while Racine's Phedre, "the finest tragedy of the French classical stage," was a total failure. Partly on account of this failure, partly from religious scruples, Racine now abandoned dramatic writing for almost twelve years. He intended to become a monk, the effect of his early religious training leading him, evidently, to seek in a life of devotion consolation for his disappointments and balm for his remorse. He was persuaded, however, to abandon this purpose and, instead, to marry a devout woman and let the quiet of a domestic life suffice instead of the privations and severities of the cloister. He was soon after appointed historiographer to the king, conjointly with Boileau. He now pursued a most regular and exemplary life-giving one-third of each day to religion, one-third to the king, and one-third to his family and friends. In 1690 he was induced to produce a drama for the pupils in the Maison de St. Cyr. Esther was the result and, though acted by school girls, it met with immense success. The next year, he produced Athalie, but, as the school had given up theatricals, this work was published. It found few readers, but is regarded at the present day as one of Racine's finest dramas. Racine was the author of many odes, epigrams, and songs. He wrote prose as well as verse. SAYINGS. Extreme justice is often injustice. I fear God and I have no other fear. He who will travel far spares his steed. Let us do what honor demands. Innocence has nothing to dread. A single word often betrays a great design. CRITICISMS. The tragedies of Racine are more elegant than those of Corneille though less bold and striking. Corneille's principal characters are heroes and heroines thrown into situations of extremity, and displaying strength of mind superior to their position. Racine's characters are men, not heroes,-men such as they are, not such as they might possibly be.-Botta. In the eyes of his countrymen, Racine is the most perfect, if not the most sublime, of all their dramatists. Corneille may at times exhibit a grander and more rugged energy, but in beauty, grace, and a certain tender majesty of style, Racine is held to be without a rival; and it must be remembered that style, and not portraiture of human character, is the thing in which French dramatists aim to shine. The declamations in which the heroes and heroines of Racine indulge are marvellously fine pieces of rhetoric; but, compared with the Elizabethan drama, they are deficient in deep insight into human nature and in genuine passion, while humor is altogether excluded.-Chambers. Of the whole world which is subject to the poet, he took only a narrow artificial and conventional fraction. Within these narrow bounds, he did work which no admirer of literary craftsmanship can regard without admiration. But at the same time no one speaking with competence can deny that the bounds are narrow.-Britannica.