Ratio et fabula dans les tragédies de Sénèque

Bibliographic Data

ID5109477
AuthorsJean-Pierre Aygon (corresponding author)
Year2008
Issue78
Pages187-205
Publication date2008-10-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePallas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-0387 • E-ISSN: 2272-7639
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/pallas.15327
OpenAlexW15381990
LanguageFR
References cited16

To him who studies the relationships between rational knowledge and myths, Seneca appears as a paradoxical author, since he wrote philosophical works in which ratio keeps fabulae at a distance, and tragedies the themes of which are provided by the same fabulae. The theoretical stances taken up by Seneca on that issue are confronted to his tragic poems on three definite points: to begin with, how to understand that, in Hercules Furens, the author developed a lengthy descriptio of the inferi, (which, by the way, does not seem necessary to the economy of the work), when he had often criticized the poetic descriptions of the nether world that increased the fear of death? Two instances are then analysed of a distancing of myths in fabulae (Troad. 371-408 and Phae. 177-203), passages that might be described as ≪ metamythological ≫. Lastly, the point is to look for signs of correspondences between certain elements of the stoic doctrine of passions and the treatment of the myth, in the way in which Seneca conceived Medea’ s ≪ going into action ≫ in the eponymous play

Art · Humanities · Passions · Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical and Literary Studies · Philosophy

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