is!) is the one inspired by the greatest sympathy; and the best literary criticism is that of her, and I fancy Mr Strachey's, favourite author, Racine. This is the most important essay in the book, and an invaluable, because unique, contribution to English critical literature.
Mr Strachey always obviously enjoys reversing accepted opinions. But it is unfair to call iconoclast the artist who has revealed that the insipid Lady of the Lamp was really a splendid and remorseless Amazon, and has substituted for the priggish alabaster Albert of official history, a melancholy, misunderstood, too humane and too romantic Prince. Never though has he fought more admirably than against the Vulgar Errors and ignorant provincialism of English critics of Racine. Most English students of French poetry can with justice claim to appreciate Villon and the Pléiade, and not to be taken in too completely by Victor Hugo. But they usually surrender entirely to the plaintive melodies of Verlaine, and try to raise a good minor poet to an uncomfortable eminence above his poetic superiors. Similarly they are apt to treat Baudelaire as a mere "gardener of strange flowers," and to enjoy the superficial decadence in his poems which would entitle them to be illustrated by Beardsley, while they neglect to see in him a classic poet directly descended from Racine.
No one could be a better guide than Mr Strachey through the obstacles which make the approach to Racine so arduous to English readers. But first a warning; it is useless for any one to open a Racine without a pretty sound understanding and appreciation of the French language. The first thing necessary is a sensitive ear. And it is lack of ear in the reader which is the most formidable obstacle rather than any difficulty with the classical conventions the use of which Mr Strachey so eloquently explains and defends. Shakespeare stands translation fairly well; not losing more than half his lustre.
". . . Like Patience on a Monument,
Smiling at Grief"
is well enough rendered by
"Semblable à la résignation sur un tombeau
qui sourit à la douleur."
