Christianisme et tragédie

le cas Racine

Abstract: All in all, the birth of tragedy constitutes a less obscure enigma than its renaissance in a Christian context, if only at some rare and selected instances of the collective experience of faith. For, under a Christian system, it was not difficult to assimilate within the drama of the sacra...

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Bibliographic Details
Author:Philippe Vallin
Published: S.n., s.l., 2009
Volume:84
Pages:43-60
Language:French
Periodical:Revue des sciences religieuses
Number:1
Format:Article
Topic:- Works > Confessiones > Topics > [Culture antique]
- Influence and Survival > Early Modern Period (1453-1789) > Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne (1627-1704)
- Influence and Survival > Early Modern Period (1453-1789) > [Racine (Jean, 1639-1699)]
Status:Active
Description
Summary:Abstract: All in all, the birth of tragedy constitutes a less obscure enigma than its renaissance in a Christian context, if only at some rare and selected instances of the collective experience of faith. For, under a Christian system, it was not difficult to assimilate within the drama of the sacramental scene of salvation, baptism or the Eucharist, all that Greek tragedy had already negotiated in terms of fatal suffering, implacable passions carrying death inevitably with them: in Jesus Christ, God is an unequalled victim. Now, the example of Racine's tragedy must question our minds, for it doesn't at all pretend to conquer an already acquired space for the sacrament, but rather highlights with theological sharpness the 'tragic suspense', which precedes the divine devolution of grace. ppealing to the Confessions, Bossuet wished Racine's conversion to be interpreted as a retraction of his tragic poetry. But it seems on the contrary that the account of the famous convert in Book VIII of the Confessions indicates the particular relevance that the tragic scene has for Christianity: just as we see it with Athalie, an Old Testament tragedy, nothing more tragic and more Christian, in fact, than a scene of salvation which does not know yet to be the scene of the Saviour.