At the age of 69, Pellegrin had a long career as an opera librettist behind him, so it was unsurprising Rameau should have approached him for his debut, especially given his authorship of "Jephté". Distant models for "Hippoyte et Aricie" were "Hippolytus" by Euripides and "Phaedra" by Seneca the Younger, but the most important source was Jean Racine's famous tragedy "Phèdre" (1677). Such a classic of the "Grand Siècle" would have been well known to the audience so adapting it might be seen as a deliberate provocation to the conservatives.