Plant of a Strange Vine: >Oratio Corrupta< and the Poetics of Senecan Tragedy

Robert John Sklenár

Published by De Gruyter 2017

Plant of a Strange Vine

>Oratio Corrupta< and the Poetics of Senecan Tragedy

Robert John Sklenár

Volume 363 in the series Beiträge zur Altertumskunde

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110519747

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book studies Seneca's poetic drama from a novel point of view. Whereas most criticism of Seneca's dramas has tended to focus on their relationship to Stoicism, I approach them from the perspective of Seneca's own theory of literary decadence, which he sets forth in the 114th of his letters to Lucilius. His theory can be summed up as follows: the various forms of stylistic corruption are the result of a straining for effect, which itself reflects a taste for the extreme. A writer or speaker's stylistic vices thus mirror the vices of his character; they also reflect the vices of the time and place in which he lives, since every user of language is conditioned by his environment. What is especially striking about Seneca's discussion is that a number of the vices he lists – hyperbole, disruption of natural word order, excessive metaphor – are notable features of the poetic style of his own dramas. I argue for a rehabilitation of the 'decadent' style of Seneca's tragedies: in Seneca's hands, this style is a precise diagnostic tool for revealing the self-destructive irrationality that governs not only the individual, but also his society and the entire universe.

Author / Editor information

Robert Skenlář, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Foreword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	v
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Chapter One. Letter 114 and the Poetics of Decadence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter Two. A Senecan Reading of Seneca’s Oedipus, Part I Language and the Diseased Animus: The Discourse of Oedipus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
Chapter Three. A Senecan Reading of Seneca’s Oedipus, Part II Language and the Diseased Cosmos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
Chapter Four. Seneca and Neronian Aesthetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Subject index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars in Classics and Comparative Literature
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 99
Keywords: Silver Latin; decadence; stoicism

eBook

Published: September 25, 2017
ISBN: 9783110519747

Hardcover

Published: September 25, 2017
ISBN: 9783110517729