The Poetics of the Glance in Racine (1954)

Abstract

The hero of Corneille has the universe for his witness. Knowingly and willingly, he is on view to every people, every age. He invites the world to look at him; lays before it his admirable, his dazzling self. In every movement, the Cornelian hero sets out to let it be seen what manner of man he is; any decision, any inner strivings, are immediately put on show. He may sacrifice himself — give up the one he loves, give up his life — but he never gives up the right to show himself in the very act of sacrifice, and wins back, in the astonished glance of the universe, a new existence, transfigured by glory. Through that glance he receives a hundredfold whatever he has lost.