Department of Classics

August W. Schlegel published his essay "Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d'Euripide" in Paris in 1807 and included a very slightly revised version in his Essais littéraires et historiques in 1842, but these publications are not widely available and are not included in German editions of Schlegel's works. The "Comparaison" makes detailed comments on Jean Racine's Phèdre of 1677 and Euripides' Hippolytus of 428 BCE (Racine's major source, although he also drew on Seneca's Phaedra and other classical sources), and is an interesting document in the reception of Euripides and of Racine as well as useful evidence of the development of tragic theory in the German neoclassical and romantic traditions.

This digital edition presents the text of the 1842 edition (with critical notes recording the variants of the 1807 version) with introduction, glossary of proper names, and annotations (many identifying quotations and allusions made by Schlegel without bibliographic reference), as well as some paragraphs from the preface to the 1842 book that comment on the circumstances of original publication.

A subsequent version or versions of this digital edition will contain a more extensive introduction and an English translation of Schlegel's essay.