Bérénice on Trial: Judging Corneille Against Racine

Abstract

On 21 November 1670, Parisian spectators could watch Racine's Bérénice at the Hôtel de Bourgogne and, a week later, attend the premiere of Corneille's Tite et Bérénice at the Palais Royal, as the playwrights and their troupes vied for box office success. Despite Racine's victory, scholarship on the playwrights has minimized the importance of this duel as just one among many guerres comiques. This essay argues that the comedy, Tite et Titus ou Critique sur les Bérénices, published anonymously in 1673, enables a better understanding of how the duelling plays were a defining experience for both playwrights. The comedy stages Racine's Titus and Corneille's Tite, who come before the god Apollon in judgment, accusing one another of impersonation. Understanding the allegory of the Parnasse trial renders visible the stakes of the Bérénice duel and illustrates the changing reception of the tragic genre in the last quarter of seventeenth-century France.