LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
(3 B.C.-65 A.D.) |
THE
eight tragedies and one praetexta attributed to Seneca
are the only surviving specimens of Latin tragic drama. They
were probably written by the philosopher of that name, who was
born in Cordova, Spain, in the third year of our era. He was
a brilliant youth, studying law and the Greek poets. Early in
life he attached himself to the Stoics, later to the Pythagoreans.
His remarkable oratory in the Roman courts of law awakened the
jealousy of the Emperor Caligula, who hinted that the philosopher-orator
would be in better health away from Rome. Consequently Seneca
went into exile from which he was recalled, after the death of
Caligula, by Agrippina, who placed him as tutor to her son Nero,
the heir apparent. In this post of advantage Seneca gained fame
and wealth. For five years or so during the early days of Nero's
reign, the power of Seneca, and his colleague Burrus, was second
only to Nero himself.
Seneca was learned and able, and his writings
have the excellent quality of being conversational in tone, even
when touching the most profound topics. His tragedies were written
while he was in exile, and we do not know that they were ever
enacted on any stage. He chose the dialogue form, but was more
interested in his theories than in drama, and he knew more about
the lawyer's platform than the stage. Moreover the ordinary popular
play of his day, indescribably indecent and coarse, was highly
distasteful to him. There was no public stage open to a writer
of tragedy. Such works as Seneca's probably had little chance
of performance, still less of popularity. They are more like
dialogue-poems meant to be recited at banquets or read in the
library. They follow the classic form, and are based on classic
themes; but the flair for the theater is lacking. The tone is
too rhetorical, too artificial, and often insincere. The antithesis,
the epigram, and the quotable saying were more important to their
author than the sincere unfolding of the human situation.
Among Greek writers, Euripides
attracted Seneca most. His Agamemnon is an imitation of
Aeschylus, his Oedipus
after Sophocles; all the other
plays are after Euripides. In most cases he retained the Greek
names and plot, making slight changes in the arrangement of scenes,
or shifting the action in order to bring a different character
into prominence. Here and there a new personage is introduced;
yet the Latin plays are generally shorter than the Greek originals.
The chorus was retained, though there was no dancing place in
a Roman theater. The lyrics given to the chorus by Seneca do
not advance the plot or intensify the action; they merely serve
for rhetorical display and seem therefore doubly redundant and
artificial.
The Medea, the Mad Hercules,
and The Trojan Women are among the best of his plays.
In the first two, the action is practically identical with the
Greek prototypes. The Trojan Women is a contamination
of the Hecuba and The Trojan Women of Euripides.
There are many differences in detail, and changes of scene not
customary in a Greek play. Only three speaking actors are required
to be on the stage at one time, but the taboo is lifted from
portraying scenes of violence. The plays are far inferior to
the corresponding Greek dramas. Seneca's artificiality and lack
of sincerity proved fatal when it came to the delineation of
passion. The Phaedra of Euripides struggles against her unlawful
love, but is overcome by Aphrodite; while the Phaedra of Seneca
is sensual and shameless, deceiving her nurse in order to gain
her as an accomplice. Similar parallels can be found in other
plays, proving Seneca the weaker and smaller genius, if genius
at all.
SENECA'S IMPORTANCE IN
DRAMATIC HISTORY
It is obvious that Seneca's importance
in drama does not lie primarily in the intrinsic value of his
plays. Like Plautus and Terence,
he was a link between the ancient and the modern stage. Through
him the European world first became acquainted with classic tragedy.
A translation of his plays, made by different writers, was published
in London in 1581, just at the time when the Elizabethan poets
were most strongly attracted to the theater. They were looking
for a form more concise than the sprawling chronicles
and miracles; and in comparison with medieval compositions the
Senecan model was indeed neat, tight-bound, and effective.
In France the influence of Seneca was even
greater than in England. There sprang up a neo-classic school
which dominated the stage for many decades. To the modern student,
it seems as if all that was least admirable and least characteristic
of the classic writers at their best had somehow been salvaged
by Seneca and handed down to the European stage. We miss the
wisdom and sincerity, the tender beauty and nobility of the Greeks;
while we find ever with us the long, undramatic speeches, the
soliloquies, the off-stage action reported by the messenger,
as well as cumbersome rhetoric and artificial mannerisms. Nevertheless
for better or worse, it was the fertilization of the Renaissance
mind by the classic spirit, through Seneca in tragedy and through
Plautus and Terence in comedy, which produced the remarkable
European drama of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
This article was originally
published in Minute History of the Drama. Alice B. Fort
& Herbert S. Kates. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1935.
pp. 86-8
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