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Jean Racine
Life Time
22 December 1639 - 21 April 1699
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Jean Racine was born in a small French town called La Ferte Milon, which belonged to the county of Valois. The father of the future playwright was a tax official. His mother died when Jean was very young, and his father died a little later. Jean and his younger brother were raised by his grandmother. In 1649, the boy entered the school at the monastery of Port Royal in Beauvais. In 1655 he became a student of the abbey.
The years spent in the abbey greatly influenced the literary development of
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Jean Racine was born in a small French town called La Ferte Milon, which belonged to the county of Valois. The father of the future playwright was a tax official. His mother died when Jean was very young, and his father died a little later. Jean and his younger brother were raised by his grandmother.
In 1649, the boy entered the school at the monastery of Port Royal in Beauvais. In 1655 he became a student of the abbey.
The years spent in the abbey greatly influenced the literary development of the playwright. He studied with the most prominent philologists of the time: Claude Lanslot, Pierre Nicolas, Jean Jamont and Antoine Le Maestre.
Then the playwright studied at Paris College, where he met Molière, Lafontaine and Boilo. At the same time he began to write plays, for the court ode "Nymph of the Seine" was awarded a pension from King Louis the Fourteenth in 1660. Then came the works “Idyll of the World”, “A Brief History of Port Royal” and “Spiritual Songs”.
In 1661, Jean decided to move with his uncle, who had previously been a priest, to the south of France in the city of Joses to negotiate a benefice from the church. This would allow the playwright to devote himself to literary creativity completely. But the church refused his request, and a year later Racine returned to Paris.
The first plays that have come down to us were written by the author on the advice of Molière, who staged them in 1664: these are “Alexander the Great” and “Thebaida, or Brothers-enemies”.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries most of his tragedies were translated into Russian. These works were highly appreciated by Alexander Herzen and Alexander Pushkin. However, among the works of Jean there is the only comedy “Shutyagia”, written by him in 1668. In it, the author mocked the French court.
The great playwright died in 1699 in Paris.