Jean Racine (French: [??~ ?asin]), baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine (22 December 1639 &ndash; 21 April 1699), was a French dramatist and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such &quot;examples of neoclassical perfection&quot; as <i>Ph&egrave;dre</i>, <i>Andromaque</i>, and <i>Athalie</i>.<br />Racine&#39;s plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic alexandrine; he is renowned for elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what Robert Lowell described as a &quot;diamond-edge&quot;, and the &quot;glory of its hard, electric rage&quot;. Racine&#39;s dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage.