The Silence of the Gods

In the winter of 1677, Jean Racine sat alone in his study at the Hôtel de Nevers, staring at a blank page. At thirty-seven, he was the undisputed master of French tragedy, court historiographer to Louis XIV, wealthy, honored, envied. Yet he had just made a decision that stunned Paris: he would write no more plays for the public theater. After "Phèdre," there would be silence.

The decision had been building since New Year's Day, when his enemies had mounted a rival "Phèdre" by Pradon at the competing theater. They had bought up seats to his premiere, leaving it half-empty while packing Pradon's inferior work. The cabal had failed—anyone could see which was the masterpiece—but the experience disgusted him. Was this what he had sacrificed everything for? These petty jealousies, these cabals and conspiracies?

He thought of his youth at Port-Royal, that austere Jansenist monastery where he had learned Greek and purity of heart. His teachers there had considered theater the devil's chapel, poetry a snare for souls. He had betrayed them for worldly glory, even writing cruel satires against them when they tried to recall him. Now, at the height of that glory, their warnings echoed in his mind.

But it was more than guilt that silenced him. In "Phèdre," he had pushed tragedy to its absolute limit. His heroine, consumed by forbidden passion for her stepson, had voiced desires so volcanic that actresses fainted speaking them. He had shown the human heart as a battlefield where reason always lost to passion, where the gods were cruel and grace absent. What more was there to say? He had looked into the abyss of human nature and written what he saw. Now it was time to seek salvation—or at least peace.

As he laid down his pen that night, Racine couldn't know he was ending the greatest decade of tragic writing since ancient Athens. He would live twenty-two more years, write two final religious plays, and die reconciled with Port-Royal. But the poet who had given voice to Hermione's fury, Bérénice's grief, and Phèdre's guilt would speak no more. The silence would be as eloquent as any speech.