Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature, Music, The Human Condition

Tags

Alexandre Cabanel, Cantique de Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré, Hippolytus, Jean Racine, Phaedra, Theseus, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Phèdre, by Alexandre Cabanel (1880)

Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jean Racine’ Phèdre

Jean Racine (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) is the foremost dramatist (tragedy) of 17th-century France. Racine is best known for his tragedies the most powerful of which may be Phaedra EN (Phèdre FR) which premiered 1 on January 1677, at l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, the best venue in Paris.

In Greek mythology, Phaedra is the daughter of Pasiphaë, the granddaughter of Helios, the personification of the Sun, and the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and the son of Zeus. She is married to Theseus, the founding hero of Athens, who slayed the Minotaur, aided by Ariadne, Phaedra’s sister. Ariadne gave Theseus a thread (le fil d’Ariane) to guide him to the Minotaur, was enclosed in the Cretan labyrinth. The Minotaur is the child of Pasiphaë and a bull and, therefore, a half-brother to Phaedra and her sister Ariadne. As for the bull, he may be the Sacred Bull, a White Bull. Europa was seduced by Zeus disguised as a bull. (See Europa, Wikipedia.)

Europa and the Bull - Red-Figure Pottery, Stamnos, Tarquinia Museum, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Europa and the Bull, Greek Red-Figure Pottery, circa 480 BCE (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

In Racine’s tragedy, Theseus, Phèdre’s husband, has a son by a previous marriage, Hippolytus. During a lenghty absence, it is reported that Theseus has died. Phaedra, who has fallen in love with Hippolytus, tells him she loves him. Hippolytus is horrified. However, Theseus has not died. When he returns home, a jealous Phaedra—she has learned that Hippolytus loves Aricie—tells Theseus that she was seduced by Hippolytus.

Theseus calls on Poseidon (Neptune), who has promised to grant him wishes, and asks him to avenge him. A monster comes out of the sea and kills an innocent Hippolytus who is riding on a horse. Guilt-ridden Phaedra commits suicide.

Racine’s play is based on Euripides’s Hippolytus, but Jean Racine’s play is the work of a writer who views love as devouring passion.

Jean Racine’s Phèdre is a Gutenberg publication.

Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine

As for Gabriel Fauré‘s Cantique de Jean Racine, it was composed when Fauré was 19. The text itself is a paraphrase, by Racine of a Medieval hymn entitled Consors paterni luminis. In Racine’s paraphrase (see below) God seems distant as He also seems in Phèdre. This hymn is sung at the beginning of Matins, the Canonical Hour that ends as day breaks. Set to Fauré’s music, the meaning of the text, an almost despairing hope that God “notre unique espérance” (our only hope) will have mercy on powerless humanity is expressed in a poignant yet resigned manner. Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine is the centrepiece of this post.

Alexandre Cabanel: a portrait of Phèdre

Our featured artist is Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889), an academic painter. He won the Prix de Rome and was awarded the Grande Médaille d’Honneur at the Salons of 1865, 1867, and 1878. In 1863, Cabanel was elected a member of the Institute, founded on 25 October 1795, and appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.

Cabanel’s art has been described as art pompier (pompous), but his portrait of Phèdre is exquisite and renders her inability to fight a fatal love. She looks powerless. Cabanel’s most famous work is The Birth of Venus, 1863, housed at the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris.

The Birth of Venus, by Alexandre Cabanel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Le Cantique de Jean Racine: the Text

I have not provided an English translation of Racine’s Cantique. However, translations of the canticle are available, in several languages, at ChoralWiki (simply click).

Verbe, égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance,
Jour éternel de la terre et des cieux ;
De la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence,
Divin Sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux !

Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante,
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix ;
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante,
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois !

Ô Christ, sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle
Pour te bénir maintenant rassemblé.
Reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle,
Et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé !

composer: Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924)

work: Cantique de Jean Racine, Op 11

performer: unidentified

October 6th, 2012

WordPress

The Procrustean Bed

15 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on The Procrustean Bed

Tags

freedom, justice, labyrinth, Phaedra, Procrustes, relativity, theory, Theseus

In a version of this blog, now erased, I said that once some of my first-year students said to me that, since they were now adults, i. e. away from parental guidance, they were free to scream at the top of their lungs, during initiation. My response was that their freedom ended where mine began. And I also said that, henceforth, I would treat them as adults. When they were in a drunken stupor and screaming as loudly as they could, I would not phone Campus Security, but the local detachment of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police (RCMP).

However, in my next blog, I stated that many of these same students had matured and that, as adults, they had not ceased to amaze me. For instance, they had learned that, although they were individuals, they lived in a collectivity and that, under acceptable circumstances, they had to respect members of that collectivity.

Occasionally, those students would ask for my opinion on various topics. I did not like giving my opinion. They had to adopt their own values. As a result, the only comment ever offered when we discussed thorny issues, was that, in my view, morality ended where inhumanity began. This, I would add, had often been my beacon when making decisions. There are so many murky areas and shades of grey galore.

I also told my students that there were times when a rule had to be broken in the interest of justice or some higher value. Justice, I would explain, can be a Procrustean bed as is also the case with bureaucracy. Greek mythology’s Procrustes, had an iron bed. If a person he laid on his bed did not fit it from end to end, he would stretch that person. Conversely, if the person was too tall, Procrustes resorted to an amputation.

In other words, I would tell them that one cannot rearrange reality to fit a theory. Certain things change, others remain. Certain things are right and others, wrong, but what about the rest? The meaning of a word can change if the word is used in a different context: denotation vs connotation i.e, “mistress” and “to record” vs “to throw away old records.”

Similarly, the notion of freedom has fluctuations. It is relative. However, I would add there are times when a crime is a crime is a crime.

Life can be a labyrinth. I hope my students got an education that is useful to them. I loved them and I miss them.