Abstract: This article proposes an original reinterpretation of the play by showing that the story of Titus and Bérénice is not characterized in a tragic way at all by Racine and is paradoxically configured as a long and gallant declaration of love that is constantly postponed. Although Racine’s main source turns out to be a little-known text by Scudéry, the playwright has managed to reintroduce a tragic dimension via the character Antiochus, a true tragic hero in Aristotle’s sense.
