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Titus, passionately in love with Berenice, sends her away from Rome “in spite of himself and in spite of her”, recounts Suetonius. Racine places this famous narrative at the heart of his peerless tragedy, Berenice, whose simplicity of plot constitutes a literary tour de force. Titus and Berenice love each other; under the watchful eye of Antiochus, the hopeless lover, they try yet refuse to understand each other. Taking up the “majestic sadness” of these alexandrines, among the greatest verses in the French language, Michael Jarrell amplifies the power of words, making them a vehicle for spaces and identities that, from Rome to Jerusalem, are unceasingly questioned.
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