A brilliant actress and the men who love art, politics, and her collide over what to live for. James's novel of the theater and the artistic life.
Books mentioned in The Tragic Muse (11)
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare: “I'm afraid they don't want _King John_, and I don't believe they hunger for _Antony and Cleopatra_," Basil Dashwood suggested.”
Phèdre by Jean Racine: “Thus apostrophised the girl broke out with one of the speeches of Racine's Phaedra, hushing her companions on the instant.”
King John by William Shakespeare: “He recognised one of the great tirades of Shakespeare's Constance and saw she had just begun the magnificent scene at the beginning of the third act of _King John_, in which the passionate, injured mother and widow sweeps in wild organ-tones the entire scale of her irony and wrath.”
Il ne faut jurer de rien by Alfred de Musset: “just the thing for the cheek of the young person--_Il ne Faut Jurer de Rien_ and _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_.”
Les Nuits by Alfred de Musset: “she could recite the "Nights" of Alfred de Musset.”
Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac: “I read Balzac for instance--I encounter the admirable portrait of Valérie Marneffe in _La Cousine Bette_."”
The Lotus-Eaters by Alfred Tennyson: “I think he's much deeper than La Fontaine"; and after some deliberation and delay Miriam broke into "The Lotus-Eaters," from which she passed directly, almost breathlessly, to "Edward Gray."”
Edward Gray by Alfred Tennyson: “I think he's much deeper than La Fontaine"; and after some deliberation and delay Miriam broke into "The Lotus-Eaters," from which she passed directly, almost breathlessly, to "Edward Gray."”
Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller: “She shook her head with stately sadness; she might have been trying some effect for Mary Stuart in Schiller's play.”
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “the occasion reminded him of pages in _Wilhelm Meister_. He himself could pass for Wilhelm, and if Mrs. Rooth had little resemblance to Mignon, Miriam was remarkably like Philina.”