The Passions in Play
Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama

Critical analysis of Senecan tragedy with a particular emphasis on his most accomplished play.

Alessandro Schiesaro (Author)

9780521818018, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 September 2003

300 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.604 kg

'… the first sustained literary analysis of the Thyestes, which many consider to be Seneca's best tragedy. … careful indexes and an extensive bibliography.' Religious Studies Review

This monograph is devoted to the most important of Seneca's tragedies, Thyestes, which has had a notable influence on Western drama from Shakespeare to Antonin Artaud. Thyestes emerges as the mastertext of 'Silver' Latin poetry, and as an original reflection on the nature of theatre comparable to Euripides' Bacchae. The book analyses the complex structure of the play, its main themes, the relationship between Seneca's vibrant style and his obsession with dark issues of revenge and regression. Substantial discussion of other plays - especially Trojan Women, Oedipus and Medea - permits a comprehensive re-evaluation of Seneca's poetics and its pivotal role in post-Virgilian literature. Topics explored include the relationship between Seneca's plays and his theory of the emotions, the connection between poetic inspiration and the Underworld, and Seneca's treatment of time, which, in a perspective informed by psychoanalysis, is seen as a central preoccupation of Senecan tragedy.

Acknowledgements
Note on translations
Introduction
1. Poetry, passions and knowledge
2. Staging Thyestes
3. A craftier Tereus
4. Atreus rex
5. Fata se vertunt retro
6. The poetics of passions
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index of passages cited
General index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Theatre studies [AN]