The passions in play : Thyestes and the dynamics of Senecan drama / Alessandro Schiesaro.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schiesaro, Alessandro, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D. Thyestes.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus.

Thyestes, King of Olympia and Mycenae (Mythological character)--In literature.

Thyestes.

Tragedy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 284 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-268) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-280-43447-3

0-511-18090-X

0-511-06125-0

0-511-20505-8

0-511-32648-3

0-511-48237-X

0-511-06971-5

OCLC:

57218710