About the work
Bajazet is a five-act tragedy in verse by Jean Racine, first performed in January 1672 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. It is the only tragedy for which Racine drew not on antiquity but on recent history: the 1635 murder of Bajazet, younger brother of the Ottoman sultan Murad IV, inside the sultan's seraglio in Constantinople.
Plot
In the Constantinople seraglio, the sultana Roxane wields power while Sultan Murad is away at war with Persia. She loves the imprisoned Prince Bajazet and will save him only if he marries her; but Bajazet secretly loves Princess Atalide. When Roxane discovers the deception she has Bajazet executed, only to be killed herself on the returning sultan's orders; Atalide takes her own life.
Cultural significance
Racine made the seraglio a "lieu d'enfermement" – a place of confinement that slowly suffocates those who live in it – setting this tragedy apart from his other plays. Contemporaries such as Corneille accused him of dressing French emotions in oriental costume; today Bajazet is valued as one of Racine's most modern plays precisely for its claustrophobic intensity.