Phèdre is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
Title page from the first edition of Phèdre et Hippolyte
Phaedra and Hippolytus, c. 290 AD
Phèdre and Thésée (1923), Léon Bakst
Phèdre (1880), Alexandre Cabanel
Tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.
Mask of Dionysus. Greek, Myrina, 2nd century BCE.
Scene from the tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. Roman fresco in Pompeii.
Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) King Lear, Cordelia's Farewell
French actor Talma as Nero in Racine's Britannicus.