Phedre
Jean Racine · 1677
A queen consumed by forbidden desire for her stepson. Racine's French alexandrines turn sexual obsession into the most formally perfect verse drama ever written. The role of Phedre is to French actresses what Hamlet is to English actors: the summit. Sarah Bernhardt played it. So did every great French actress since.
The case against
Everything depends on the alexandrines, and the alexandrines do not survive translation. In English you get a plot (queen desires stepson, lies, deaths) that Euripides told first, minus the verse that justifies the retelling. Onstage in any language the action is people declaiming in rooms; Racine's perfection is a cage, and admiring cages is an acquired taste.
Drama · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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