SOURCE: Campbell, John. “Tragedy and Time in Racine's Mithridate.” Modern Language Review 92, no. 3 (July 1997): 590-98.

In the following essay, Campbell considers to what extent Mithridate can be called a tragedy.

Even admirers of Racine's tragedies have hesitated with Mithridate. For François Mauriac it was ‘le moindre de ses chefs-d'œuvre’, and for Raymond Picard ‘la tragédie la moins tragique de Racine’, while for Marcel Gutwirth the play ‘n'est tragique que par le sous-titre’, and for Jean Rohou it is ‘plus héroïco-galant que tragique’.¹ Common to many reactions is the idea that as a tragic drama it is structurally flawed. Unfavourable comparisons are made with the plotting techniques of the mature plays that precede it: there is a hint of regret that ‘it cannot be dismissed as an early effort’.² Whereas in Bérénice love's shipwreck intervenes only at the very end of a...