Tragic Seneca: An Essay in the Theatrical Tradition

273 Pages·1997·1.08 MB·English

by  A.j. Boyle

TRAGIC SENECA

TRAGIC SENECA
An essay in the theatrical tradition
A.J.Boyle
London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1997 A.J.Boyle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

Brtitish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Boyle, A.J. (Anthony James)
Tragic Seneca: an essay in the theatrical tradition/A.J.Boyle
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, c.4BC—65AD—Tragedies.
2. European drama—Renaissance, 1450–1600—History and criticism.
3. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, c.4BC—65AD—Influence.
4. Latin drama (Tragedy)—History and criticism.
5. European drama (Tragedy)—Roman influences.
6. Mythology, Greek, in literature.
I. Title.
PA6685.B69 1997
872´.01–dc21 96–52766

ISBN 0-203-43259-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-74083-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-12495-6 (Print Edition)
For my brother
John Michael Boyle
TRAGEDY I must haue passions that must moue the soule,
Make the heart heaue, and throb within the bosome,
Extorting teares out of the strictest eyes,
To racke a thought and straine it to his forme,
Untill I rap the sences from their course.
Anon. A Warning for Fair Women (1599)
CONTENTS
Preface viii
Textual note x
Prologue
1 THE ROMAN THEATRE 3
Part I Senecan tragedy
2 THE DECLAMATORY STYLE 15
3 IDEAS MADE FLESH 32
4 THE BODY OF THE PLAY 57
5 THE PALIMPSESTIC CODE 85
6 THE THEATRICALISED WOR(L)D 112
Part II Seneca and Renaissance drama
7 SENECA INSCRIPTVS 141
8 IDEOLOGY AND MEANING 167
9 THE METATHEATRICAL MIND 193
Epilogue
10 TRAGEDY AND CULTURE 211
Senecan chronology 213
Notes 217
Bibliography 240
General index 252
Index of main passages discussed 261
vii
PREFACE
This book is the product of almost two decades of thinking about Seneca
tragicus. I began to teach Senecan drama at both the graduate and the
undergraduate level in Australia during the late 1970s, inspired by John
Herington’s seminal Arion article of 1966 and my own developing interest in
Roman theatre. Dissatisfaction with the then current state of Senecan criticism
and with Senecan tragedy’s exclusion from both classics curricula and the
modern canon was only intensified by the intellectual excitement experienced
in the classroom and the dramatic power generated on stage. Productions of
Phaedra at the Sydney Opera House in 1987 and of Troades at the Alexander
Theatre, Melbourne, in 1988 testified to the tragic force and theatrical
craftsmanship, indeed theatrical self-consciousness, of these plays. My previous
work has focused primarily on individual plays: both through critical essays
(1983 and 1985) and through editions, translations and commentaries on
specific texts: Phaedra (1987) and Troades (1994). In ‘Senecan tragedy: twelve
propositions’ (The Imperial Muse I, 1988) I attempted to make some larger
statement about Senecan drama. This book develops some positions of that
essay, incorporating and expanding my earlier work into a dramatic and
cultural critique of Seneca’s tragic corpus, and a new investigation of his
seminal role in the formation of Renaissance drama.
My attention to Seneca tragicus has not been unique. No reader of this
book will be unaware that it is part of an upsurge in Senecan studies (some
even call it an ‘industry’) which has taken place especially over the last decade,
embracing commentaries on specific texts, specialised monographs on
dramaturgy, metrics, Ovidian influence, argumentative structure, spectacle,
choruses, and the theatrical and textual traditions. The following revaluation
of Senecan tragedy and its impact on the Renaissance is conscious of its status
as part of this collaborative scholarship. Its aim is to further the canon revision
implicit in recent work and to help restore Seneca to a position of centrality
in the European literary and dramatic tradition.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge debts. To Francis Cairns Publications I
am grateful for permission to reuse material from my editions of Seneca’s
Phaedra and Troades. To the National Endowment for the Humanities I
viii
PREFACE
am indebted for the award of a Senior Fellowship for the year 1994/5,
which combined with a sabbatical leave from USC to give me a year’s
uninterrupted research time. I thank both the NEH and USC for their
generous provision. An important part of my Fellowship year (February to
May 1995) was spent as a Visiting Professor at King’s College, Cambridge,
where the hospitality and intellectual stimulus of the college and its
classicists, Dr John Henderson and Dr Simon Goldhill, provided an ideal
context for Senecan thinking. Several friends and colleagues read an earlier
draft of the book and offered advice: Claire Campbell, Alan Heinrich, and
Joseph Smith of USC; Peter Davis of the University of Tasmania; Ruth Morse
of Cambridge University and the Sorbonne; and Marcus Wilson of the
University of Auckland. I thank them. I state the truism that the responsibility
for what follows is not theirs. I dedicate the book to my brother, John, as a
token of my esteem for him. For over fifty years he has been both a brother
and a friend. I hope this book is not unworthy.
A.J.B.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Hallowe’en 1996
ix