The Torment of Phaedra by Henri Deberly

Published 1926 · 251 pages · 55,276 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Drama

How hard is The Torment of Phaedra to read?

The Torment of Phaedra scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
Classical and French vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
Literary prose style.
Abstraction: 58 out of 100
Passion and guilt.
Information density: 52 out of 100
Classical retelling.
Narrative indirection: 52 out of 100
Classical perspective.
Symbolic density: 58 out of 100
Phaedra mythology.
Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
Tragic distance.
Resolution withholding: 52 out of 100
Known tragic end.
Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
Classical adaptation.

How The Torment of Phaedra is regarded

The Torment of Phaedra holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Henri Deberly