Response in Which You Discuss Phaedra as an Example of Enlightenment Values

Write a response in which you discuss Phaedra as an example of Enlightenment values; that is, do you agree that love and passion, and other emotions are as dangerous as the play seems to make them.

The eighteenth century is the age of Enlightenment. The ideas during this Age of Reason are

Enlightenment values such as love, passion and conflicts stemming from stability and instability. In the play Phaedra by Jean Racine a French dramatist Euripides’s Hippolytus is adapted to a version that emphasizes the concepts of this time. From the late 17th century to early 18th century there was a focus on the ideals between reason and passion. The conflicts that are portrayed in Phaedra are centered around the depth passion leaves on a person and the aspects of love that transcend the heart to a point of control over principles. Passion is not only an emotion of deep love it is also part of lust, passion to succeed, to please and to understand oneself. The passion Racine shows through his characters of Phaedra, Hippolytus and Theseus all exemplify the Logos, Ethos and Pathos of the rhetoric triangle defining humanness. “Logos the concept of logic and reason. Ethos dealing with morals and ethics and Pathos the emotions combining the underlying anguish and deep suffering” (Ramage, 1998).

Through a character evaluation we are introduced to Phaedra who is the wife of Theseus and step mother of Hippolytus. Phaedra who burns with love and passion for her Stepson through a deep perversion of love. Her attempts to control this love are burdened by her own conflict of moralistic guilt battling violently against her lustful urges. The passionate battle inside of Phaedra epitomizes human will conquering the desire of reason and moral awareness. More importantly the dangers of the human will against the knowledge of righteousness. Phaedra is tragically tormented by this love and the hopeless anguish against herself. Reason is overridden by the emotion of love to a point that...