Racine’s Phèdre, Lowell’s Phaedra

Abstract Lowell set himself to translate Racine in the knowledge that this was a field which had never been won. Extremity was forced upon Lowell. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Lowell’s critics have proved duly unforgiving: they have refused to admit that here the history of unsuccess had been such as to call for extreme measures. Here is the emergency. First, Racine has always frustrated English hopes, being one of the great writers (European, too) never brought home in English translation. There is no Racine alive in the language as Dryden’s Juvenal is, or even Florio’s Montaigne. More: no translation of Racine into English has ever made anybody’s modest enduring reputation; there is no equivalent of Cary’s staunch dominie Dante.