The primary aim of this book is to provide an introduction, principally for students but also for the general reader, to 17th-century French writing. Nicholas Hammond shows in eight vignettes what made this period a golden age of French drama, philosophy, and creativity. He argues that, rather than acting as a stranglehold, the rules of the time propelled artistic creativity to exceptional heights, releasing a sensitivity to language and wit which has not been rivalled since.

A superb biography reissued in this new edition to coincide with the Warner Bros film Alexander, due for release 4 November 2004, starring among others Colin Farrell, Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie.

Racine’s Andromaque: Absences and Displacements casts a new look at the dynamism, richness, and complexity of Racine’s first major tragedy (first performed in Paris in 1667), through a collection of articles specially commissioned by the editors Nicholas Hammond and Joseph Harris. Challenging received opinions about the fixity of French ‘classicism’, this volume demonstrates how Racine’s play is preoccupied with absences, displacements, instability, and uncertainty. The articles explore such issues as: movement and transactions, offstage characters and locations, hallucinations and...