Amatus amatam dimisit Déclaration d'amour et tragédie cachée dans Bérénice de Racine

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.