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