Senecan Tragedy as Response to Stoic Critique

Robin Leah Weiss

doi:10.6667/interface.15.2021.130

Senecan Tragedy as Response to Stoic Critique

Robin Leah Weiss

Abstract

Seneca changes the conflict at the center of tragedy so that the protagonist is no longer caught between internal causes and external causes, the latter of which threaten to overpower or undermine the former. By employing various strategies for deemphasizing external causes, he is able to reframe tragedy around a conflict internal to the subject. Doing so allows him to solve two of the most significant problems the Stoics had identified with poetry, (i) that of the audience’s identification with protagonists and (ii) the conflation of virtues and vices. By these means, Seneca is able to produce a drama that agrees more with Stoic sensibilities, or at least, does not too overtly offend them.

Keywords

Seneca; tragedy; Thyestes; Agamemnon; Stoicism; poetry

Full Text:

HTML PDF

References

Armisen-Marchetti, M. (1989). Sapientiae Facies: étude sur les images de Sénèque. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

Bartsch, S. (1994). Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Double Speak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press.

Bobzien, S. (1998). Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Brunschwig, J., and Nussbaum, M. C. , Eds. (1993). Passions and Perceptions:

Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Boyle, A. (1997). Tragic Seneca: An Essay in the Theatrical Tradition. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Brower. (1971), Hero and Saint: Shakespeare and the Greco-Roman Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fitch, J. G., Trans. (2004). Seneca: Agammemnon, Thyestes, Hercules, Vol. IX. Cambridge, M.A.: Loeb Classical Library.

Dingel, J. (1974). Seneca und die Dichtung. Heidelberg: C. Winter.

Gill, C. (1983). “Did Chrysippus Understand Medea?,” Phronesis 28: 136-49.

____ (1984). “The Ethos/Pathos Distinction in Rhetorical and Literary Criticism,”

Classical Quarterly 34: 149-66.

____ (1987). “Two Monologues of Self-Division: Euripides, Medea 1021-80 and

Seneca, Medea 893-977.” In Whitby, Hardie and Whitby (Eds.), ‘Homo Viator’: Classical Essays for John Bramble (25-37). Bristol: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.

____ (1997). “Passion and Madness in Roman Poetry.” In S. Braund and C. Gill (Eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (213-241). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lesky, A. (1966). “Decision and Responsibility in the Tragedy of Aeschylus,” Journal of Hellenic Studies: 78-85.

Padel, R. (1992). In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

____ (1994). Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pratt, N. T. (1983), Seneca’s Drama. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.

Plutarch (2011). How to Study Poetry. Edited by R. Hunter and D. Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Miles, G. (1996). Shakespeare and the Constant Romans. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

Marshall, C.W. (2014). “The Works of Seneca the Younger and their Dates.” In G. Damschen and A. Heil (Eds.), Brill’s Companion to Seneca (33-44) Leiden: Brill.

Nussbaum, M.C. (1993). “Poetry and the Passions: Two Stoic Views.” In J. Brunschwig and M.C. Nussbaum (Eds.), Passions and Perceptions: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (97-149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

____ (1994). The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rosenmeyer, T. (1989). Senecan Drama and Stoic Cosmology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Salles, R. (2005). The Stoics on Determinism and Compatibilism. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Schiesaro, A. (1994). “Seneca’s Thyestes and the Morality of Tragic Furor.” In J. Elsner and J. Masters (Eds.), Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation (196-210). Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.

____ (1997). “Passion, Reason and Knowledge in Seneca’s Tragedies.” In S. Braund and C. Gill (Eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (89-111). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

____ (2003). The Passions in Play: Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Star, C. (2006). “Commanding Constancy in Senecan Tragedy,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 136, No.1 (Spring 2006).

J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal Naquet (1988). Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Translated by Janet Loyd. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Zone Books, 49-84.

Vernant, J.-P. (1988a). “Intimations of the Will in Greek Tragedy.” In J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal Naquet, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Translated by Janet Loyd (49-84). Brooklyn, N.Y.: Zone Books.

____ (1988b). “Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy.” In J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal Naquet, eds., Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Translated by Janet Loyd. (29-48) Brooklyn, N.Y.: Zone Books.

Whitby, M., Hardie, P., and Whitby, M., Eds. (1987), ‘Homo Viator’: Classical

Essays for John Bramble. Bristol: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6667/interface.15.2021.130

Refbacks

There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.