on. The following passage demonstrates this supremacy of reason and many of the dominant themes of neoclassicism “Ah, Brother, man’s a strangely fashioned creature / Who seldom is content to follow Nature, / But recklessly pursues his inclination / Beyond the narrow bounds of moderation, / And often, by transgressing Reason’s laws, / Perverts a lofty aim or noble cause” (Mack 299). With the king acting as a deus ex machina (god from the machine) and the flattery bestowed upon him by Moliere, we see in contrast to romanticism the state (society) as the highest authority for man and not the individual.
Phaedra shows many elements of the neoclassic period as well. In Racine’s play, we see the harking back to the classical style and t
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