Jean Racine

Jean-Baptiste Racine was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of seventeenth-century France alongside Moliere and Corneille, and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. Primarily a writer of tragedy, he produced works regarded as examples of neoclassical perfection, including Andromaque, Britannicus and Phedre, most drawing on Greek mythology and Roman history and observing the strict dramatic unities of classical French theatre. He also wrote one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a later tragedy, Esther, intended for young performers.