How long does it take to read The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine?
The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine by Jean Racine takes about 7 hours 35 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 35 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1844. 414 pages, about 113,850 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 39 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 35 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 45 minutes |
The page count is the median across 59 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Racine's poetry is always thought to be untranslatable; so one of the world's great dramatists remains inaccessible to readers without French. This is the best translation into English; Professor Knight has used a regular English blank verse which conveys remarkably well both the formality and the passion of the original. the plays given here - Andromache, Iphigenia, Phaedra and Athaliah - are chosen because the first three are those which come nearest in subject and feeling to the Attic tragedy that Racine always claimed as his inspiration; while the final biblical drama with its choruses comes nearest to the original Greek form, and perhaps to its spirit. These choruses in Professor Knight's version adhere to the French poetic form, and can be sung to the original music by Moreau. this will be a very helpful group of texts for students of drama. They will act well, and also give the armchair reader a sense of the original.
Subjects: Drama, Phaedra (Greek mythology), Iphigenia (Greek mythology), Andromache (Legendary character), French drama (Tragedy), French Verse drama
