Senecan tragedy - Wikipedia Senecan tragedy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Senecan tragedy" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca (Antikensammlung Berlin) Senecan tragedy refers to a set of ten ancient Roman tragedies, probably eight of which were written by the Stoic philosopher and politician Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The group comprises: Hercules Furens Medea Troades Phaedra Agamemnon Oedipus Phoenissae Thyestes Hercules Oetaeus Octavia Hercules Oetaeus is generally considered not to have been written by Seneca, and Octavia is certainly not.[1] In the mid-16th century, Italian humanists rediscovered these works, making them models for the revival of tragedy on the Renaissance stage. The two great, but very different, dramatic traditions of the age—French neoclassical tragedy and Elizabethan tragedy—both drew inspiration from Seneca. Many of the Senecan tragedies employ the same Greek myths as tragedies by Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides; but scholars tend not to view Seneca's works as direct adaptations of those Attic works, as Seneca's approach differs, and he employs themes familiar from his philosophical writings.[2] It is possible that the style was more directly influenced by Augustan literature[3]. Moreover, Seneca's tragedies were probably written to be recited at elite gatherings, due to their extensive narrative accounts of action, dwelling on reports of horrible deeds, and employing long reflective soliloquies. Usually, the Senecan tragedy focuses heavily on supernatural elements. The gods rarely appear, but ghosts and witches abound. French neoclassical dramatic tradition, which reached its highest expression in the 17th-century tragedies of Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine, drew on Seneca for form and grandeur of style. These neoclassicists adopted Seneca's innovation of the confidant (usually a servant), his substitution of speech for action, and his moral hairsplitting. The Elizabethan dramatists found Seneca's themes of bloodthirsty revenge more congenial to English taste than they did his form. The first English tragedy, Gorboduc (1561), by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, is a chain of slaughter and revenge written in direct imitation of Seneca. (As it happens, Gorboduc does follow the form as well as the subject matter of Senecan tragedy: but only a very few other English plays—e.g. The Misfortunes of Arthur—followed its lead in this.) Senecan influence is also evident in Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, and in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet. All three share a revenge theme, a corpse-strewn climax, and The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet also have ghosts among the cast; all of these elements can be traced back to the Senecan model. See also[edit] Theatre of ancient Rome References[edit] ^ "The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature". Oxford University Press. Missing or empty |url= (help) ^ Buckley, Emma; Dinter, Martin, eds. (2013). A Companion to the Neronian Age. Blackwell Publishing. ^ Tarrant, R. J. (1978). "Senecan Drama and Its Antecedents". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 82: 213–263. doi:10.2307/311033. JSTOR 311033. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Drama § 8. Roman Drama" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 494–495. Hicks, Robert Drew (1911). "Seneca" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 637. v t e Seneca the Younger Philosophy Dialogues De Beneficiis De Brevitate Vitae De Clementia De Constantia Sapientis De Ira De Otio De Providentia De Tranquillitate Animi De Vita Beata Letters Letters to Lucilius Consolations Seneca's Consolations (ad Helviam Matrem, ad Marciam, ad Polybium) Natural philosophy Naturales quaestiones Literature Extant plays Agamemnon Hercules Furens Medea Oedipus Phaedra Phoenissae Thyestes Troades Plays of questionable authorship Hercules Oetaeus Octavia Satire Apocolocyntosis Other Letters of Paul and Seneca (spurious) Related Senecan tragedy Stoicism Portraits Socrates and Seneca Double Herm Pseudo-Seneca The Death of Seneca (1773 painting) Family Seneca the Elder (father) Gallio (brother) Pompeia Paulina (wife) Lucan (nephew) v t e Roman and Byzantine theatre Architecture Plautus Terence Seneca Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Senecan_tragedy&oldid=942013928" Categories: Drama Tragedies (dramas) Hidden categories: CS1 errors: requires URL Articles needing additional references from July 2008 All articles needing additional references Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference AC with 0 elements Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Edit links This page was last edited on 22 February 2020, at 01:38 (UTC). 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