Sainte-Beuve deemed Athalie comparable to an Athenian tragedy by who?
Athalie Athalie is a 1691 play, the final tragedy of Jean Racine, and has been described as the masterpiece of "one of the greatest literary artists known" and the "ripest work" of Racine's genius. Voltaire considered the play the greatest triumph of the human mind, while Flaubert referred to it in "Madame Bovary" as the masterpiece of the French stage, and Sainte-Beuve deemed it comparable to "Oedipus Rex" in beauty, with "the true God added." August Wilhelm Schlegel thought Athalie to be "animated by divine breath"; other critics have regarded the poetics of drama in the play to be superior to those of Aristotle.
Amphitryon (Plautus play) Amphitryon or Amphitruo is a Latin play for the early Roman theatre by playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. It is Plautus’ only play on a mythological subject; he refers to it as a "tragicomoedia" (tragic comedy) in the prologue. The play is mostly extant, but includes several large missing sections in its latter portion. The plot of the play involves Amphitryon’s jealous and confused reaction to Alcmena’s seduction by Jupiter, and ends with the birth of Hercules.