HIC Epvlis Locvs
The Tragic Worlds of Seneca's Agamemnon and Thyestes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9325808 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A J Boyle (Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 199-228 |
| Publication date | 1983-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ramus (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0048-671X • E-ISSN: 2202-932X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0048671x00003714 |
| OpenAlex | W2504442633 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
History ... is a looking both before and after; as, indeed, the coming Time already waits, unseen, yet definitely shaped, predetermined and inevitable, in the Time come; and only by the combination of both is the meaning of either completed. Carlyle, On History When Numantia was captured by Scipio, they found mothers holding in their arms the half-eaten bodies of their own children. Petronius, Satyricon Tantalus as paradigm disturbs. The cooking and serving of one's children's flesh to test the omniscience of gods seems gruesome index of perverse ambition, a hunger for knowledge, superiority, power, for which the everlasting frustration of corresponding bodily appetites seems not only fitting punishment but emblem — emblem of man's status as appetite, his natural affinity with the beast. To the saga of the Tantalidae Seneca devotes two plays: Agamemnon and Thyestes . Dramaturgically and stylistically they differ. Verse-dialogue, lyric metre, prologue integration, interrelation between chorus and act, the choral persona , the structuring and unfolding of dramatic language and imagery, the messenger's speech, dramatic structure, movement, tempo are handled very differently in each play. Even the number of actors and choruses differs. Formal similarities of course abound: the ghost-prologue, the protagonist-attendant scene, the thematic employment of imagery (and similar imagery at that), chorus-act ‘joins’, the spectacular and thematic use of ‘theatre’, the use of postclassical dramatic conventions — the five-act structure, entrance monologue-asides, choral exit and re-entry. But these only underscore the marked dramaturgical differences between the two plays, their distinguishing characteristics and defining style
Archetype · Art · Choir · Chorus · Emblem · Literature · Meaning (existential · Poetry · Prologue · Singing · Stanza · Visual arts · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.16 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1989 - 2025 (37) |
| Highly cited | No |