Racine's stylistic distinction is, perhaps, his outstanding achievement. In seventeenth-century France, it took a genius to avoid the monotony of the metronome and the dullness of a child's primer. Classicism, in reaction to the verbal exuberance of the Renaissance, severely restricted the playwright's vocabulary. Racine had at his disposal a limited number of colorless words, chosen for their aura of elegance and nobility. He could not use the arsenal of sounds, scents, tastes, and colors of the daily vocabulary, because they were not sufficiently "noble." He was also forbidden the introduction of images, except those consecrated by usage, for the seventeenth century did not prize originality. Unlike Shakespeare, Racine could not possibly compare life to "a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more." The "player" would have been considered vulgar, the language "common" and the whole image outré.
Furthermore, all plays had to be written in verse and the rules of versification were extremely rigid. Plays were written in a twelve-syllable line called the alexandrine, with a pause after the sixth syllable called the caesura. This unimaginative rhyme consisted of alternating pairs of feminine lines (ending in -e and masculine lines (any other ending). The enjambement (run-on line) which carries the meaning over into a second line was forbidden.
