Four Tragedies and Octavia

by Seneca

Book Overview

Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented by fatal passion for her stepson. In The Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and Andromache await their...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140441743
• ISBN13: 9780140441741
• Release Date: October 1966
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The flip side of Stoicism

There is a reason that one never sees a tragedy by Seneca on stage; his works were probably never meant to be performed and the lack of any even minimal stage directions is just one of many things about these tragedies that hint at the author's likely lack of interest in ever sending his works to the theater. Tragedy was merely a useful structure in which Seneca found a way to present the underlying viewpoint of life that gave rise to his stoicism. These powerful, gruesome plays give one an impression of the world of Seneca. It is a vicious, ruthless, cruel world of intrigue, murder, insane violence and heartless people doing shameful wrongs -- and getting away with it. These plays convey an underlying perception of life on earth that was at the heart of Stoic thinkers. Indeed, the Roman world was just such a place, and Stoic philosophy sought to provide more than solace, but direction and guidance away from the omnipresent despair that one might often feel. This is the world, lacking in any real redemptive hope, that Stoicism tries to teach followers to grapple with, accept, and live in with an inner dignity, and uprightness, despite the inevitable consequences of living in such moral and ethical squalor. As plays and poetry, Seneca was a very accessible philosopher, but his writing style never won him any accolades. His plays are no more pleasant to read than his letters or other essays. They are all powerful, filled with meaning, not difficult to understand, but tedious in style. Along with Marcus Aurelius, he is one of the most easily accessible and commonly read Stoic philosophers. The introduction and considerable endnotes are very valuable and well written. Readers interested in learning something of Seneca's profound influence on later Western (particularly English) writers will find the introduction and notes of considerable use.

Forget what you know about classical tragedy...

And forget what you know about Seneca the Stoic. In his tragedies, the younger Seneca gives full reign to what Nietzsche later (and perhaps unrelatedly) recognized as the Dionysian: lust, anger, revenge, and unadulerated humanity in its most elemental. Although some apprecition of classical mythology is needed to enter these texts fully, once you're in them, you look around, and find yourself in a house of horrors or else in the deepest region of the unconscious. Read _Thyestes_, and you'll have the underpinning for horror and suspense from Poe to Jim Thompson to the _Blair Witch Project_.You could take my word for it, or you could listen to Seneca's admirers and imitators: Webster, Jonson, Shakespeare...