«Errante et sans dessein je cours dans ce palais». Per una lettura dell’Andromaque di Racine

Abstract

Racine’s Andromaque puts on the scene dramatic strategies which have a great effect on the play between the imitation of the ancient sources and the variants introduced to respect the rules; but actually the respect of those bonds turns into the quest for a refined pleasure and into the occasion for creating enthralling plays of high aesthetic value. Thus the face of the ancient tragedy changes. Here Andromaque becomes the icon of an irredeemable mourning which is the secret figure of the pièce. And the other heroine, Hermione, gives a new voice and a new sense to an inner loss caused by a devastating passion. A suggestive verse (probably inspired by Seneca) conveys this sense of wandering; in it, we find a dominating spatial element: the threatening labyrinthine palace where the action takes place. Through the variants and the innovations, Racine achieves an unexpected originality and, at the same time, he reactivates the symbolic charge of the myth.