THE PASSIONS IN PLAY Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama This is the first monograph in English 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. alessandro schiesaro is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at King s College in the University of London, having previously taught at Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin Madison. He has published widely on Latin literature, including Simulacrum et imago (1990) and co-editing, with Phillip Mitsis and Jenny Strauss Clay, Mega nepios: il destinatario nell epos didascalico (1993) and, with Thomas Habinek, The Roman Cultural Revolution (1997).
THE PASSIONS IN PLAY Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama ALESSANDRO SCHIESARO
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521818018 2003 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2003 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-81801-8 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-03765-5 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2007
per mia madre e in memoria di mio padre
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
Contents Acknowledgements Note on translations page ix xi Introduction 1 1 Poetry, passions and knowledge 8 2 Staging Thyestes 26 The poetics of furor 26 Tantalus tongue 36 Framing Thyestes 45 Tragedy, terminable and interminable 61 3 A craftier Tereus 70 Thracium nefas 70 Crime, ritual and poetry 85 The logic of crime 98 Perfection, of a kind 117 4 Atreus rex 139 Non quis, sed uter 139 De clementia 151 5 Fata se vertunt retro 177 6 The poetics of passions 221 Intertextuality and its discontents 221 Passions and hermeneutics: the audience 228 Allegories of spectatorship 235 The challenge of epos 243 Epilogue 252 Bibliography 256 Index of passages cited 269 General index 281 vii
Acknowledgements This book has been, alas, very long in the making and has also accumulated a large number of debts, both personal and institutional. It was begun in the idyllic surroundings of the Classics Department at Princeton, where it was fostered by much material support, but especially by the stimulating friendship of Josh Ober, Froma Zeitlin and Richard Martin, and, not far from East Pyne, that of Glen Bowersock, Adrienne Mayor and Daniel Mendelsohn. I also remember with gratitude the brilliant students of my graduate seminars, and the help I received on several occasions from excellent research assistants. In London, help at crucial junctures has come from John Henderson and Victoria Rimell. My colleagues Carlotta Dionisotti, Ingo Gildenhard, Roland Mayer and Michael Silk have been a great source of learning and friendship. The anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press have offered much appreciated criticism and advice. Michael Sharp has been a very supportive and patient editor. My thanks to them all. Sadly, Don Fowler can only be thanked in memoriam for all he has done for this book and its author. The book incorporates, in a revised form, material that has previously appeared in Vergilius 38 (1992); Materiali e Discussioni 39 (1997); J. Elsner and J. Masters (eds.), Reflections of Nero (London, 1994); C. Gill and S. Braund (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge, 1996); P. Parroni (ed.), Seneca e il suo tempo (Rome, 2000). The quotation from Eugène Ionesco, La cantatrice chauve, scene 8, at the beginning of the Introduction is reproduced by permission of the publisher from Emmanuel Jacquart (ed.), Théâtre Complet (Collection Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, no. 372) (Gallimard, Paris, 1990). ix
x Acknowledgements The quotation from W. H. Auden, Epitaph on a Tyrant (1939) on page 117 is reproduced from Collected Poems by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd, London and Random House Inc., New York. Citations from Seneca s tragedies are from Zwierlein s OCT edition (1986). Translations of some authors are taken, by kind permission, from the editions listed in the Note on translations. Other translations are my own. Abbreviations of classical works correspond to those used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary and, when not available there, in the Oxford Latin Dictionary.
Note on translations The following published translations have been used in this work: aeschylus: vol. ii: agamemnon. libation-bearers. eumenides. fragments, Loeb Classical Library Volume 146, translated by h. w. smyth, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; Lucan: Civil War, translated with introduction and notes by S. H. Braund (Oxford World s Classics) (1992). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; Ovid: Metamorphoses, edited by E. J. Kenney, translated by A. D. Melville (Oxford World s Classics) (1998). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; plato: vols. v/vi: the republic, Loeb Classical Library Volumes 237/276, translated by paul shorey, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936/1937. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; plutarch: vol. i: moralia, Loeb Classical Library Volume 197, translated by frank c. babbitt, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; Seneca: Medea. With an Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary,byH.M. Hine. Published by Aris & Phillips, Warminster, 2000; Fantham, Elaine: Seneca s Troades. A Literary Introduction with Text, Translation, and Commentary; Copyright c 1982 by PUP. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. seneca: vols. i/ii: moral essays, Loeb Classical Library Volumes 214/254, translated by john w. basore, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928/1932. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; seneca: vols. v/vi: epistles, Loeb Classical Library Volume 76, translated by r. m. gummere, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917/1920. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; seneca: vol. viii: xi
xii Note on translations tragedies, Loeb Classical Library Volume 62, edited and translated by john g. fitch, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002 (for Hercules furens). The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College; Virgil: Aeneid, translated by David West (Penguin Classics). Published by Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, 1991.