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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 231
reasonably. There is the inevitable issue of possible multiple sources.
both classical and contemporary. as. for instance. when in Racine's Andromaque
Pyrrus says of Andromaque. "Sans parents. sans amis. sans
espoir que sur moL" Was Racine influenced by a similar passage in the
play L'Eunuque by his friend La Fontaine. or was he influenced by Andromache's
statement to Hector in the Iliad (6.413. and 429-430)? Phillippo
argues on the basis of the verbal and non-verbal markings in
Racine's extant copy of the Iliad for Racine's "peculiar concentration of
interest ... on the Hector, Andromache and Astyanax episode" (5). Another
issue that Phillipo must confront is whether the non-verbal
markings were made by Racine himself or whether they are the legacy
of a previous owner of the volumes or were made by subsequent readers.
Here. too. she adopts a reasonable approach. arguing that the media
used for the markings-brown-black ink. grey pencil and red pencil-are
consistent with the media used in the verbal notes in Racine's
handwriting (10-13).
"So: what do the annotations tell us about overall patterns of interest
in Racine's reading of Euripides?" (53). This, of course. is the crucial
issue. Lancelot. the chief Hellenist at Racine's school. accorded a place to
Euripides because he was "remply de belles sentences." Even without
Lancelofs endorsement it would not be surprising for a classically educated
literary figure of the seventeenth century to focus on sententious
matter. Predictably. then, "between a third and a sixth of the passages
highlighted appear to be marked out for their sententious content" (53).
She also sets out in chapter 2 ("Racine as Reader: Patterns of Interest")
the concentrations of markings of passages that are notable for their
"Rhetoric. Language and Scholarship," "Stagecraft," "Dramatic Narrative"
and "Character and Emotion." this last focal point attracting the
largest share of Racine's attention in the form of well over 300 markings.
Racine's scholarship. for instance. can be seen in the one illustration
in the monograph. which also serves as the frontispiece. where he
has supplied the missing TOVCCE in the Stephanus edition; but this. of
course. is not non-verbal annotation. and Phillippo does not allow herself
to be sidetracked from her subject.
The Introduction and the first two chapters set out the context for
the more systematic exploration of the relationship between the markings
in the two Greek editions of Euripides and the plays of Racine that
to some degree use Euripides as a source. There are in fact two degrees
of relationship: (I) the less obvious links between Racine's corpus and
the annotations of the plays of Euripides not directly adapted (chapter
3); and (2) Racine's markings of Euripidean plays that served directly as
sources (Phoenissae. Iphigenia in Aulis and Hippolytus: chapter 4).
Phillippo does not make any extravagant claims for the interpreta-