Are there no limits to human cruelty? Is there any divine justice? Do the gods even matter if they do not occupy themselves with rewarding virtue and punishing wickedness? Seneca's plays might be dismissed as bombastic and extravagant answers to such questions—if so much of human history were not "Senecan" in its absurdity, melodrama, and terror. Here is an honest artist confronting the irrationality and cruelty of his world—the Rome of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—and his art reflects the stress of the encounter. The surprise, perhaps, is that Seneca's world is so like our own.
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Plays and translators: 'Octavia,' Kelly Cherry * 'Hercules Oetaeus,' Stephen Sandy * 'Oedipus,' Rachel Hadas * 'The Phoenician Women,' David Slavitt * 'Hercules Furens,' Dana Gioia.
Book Description
Plays and translators: Octavia, Kelly Cherry * Hercules Oetaeus, Stephen Sandy * Oedipus, Rachel Hadas * The Phoenician Women, David Slavitt * Hercules Furens, Dana Gioia.
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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but often more adaptation than translation,
By A Customer
This review is from: Seneca: The Tragedies (Paperback)
The "translations" in this two volume set aim at capturing the flavor of Seneca in roughly the same number of lines of poetry (most translations are longer than the originals, expanding upon the compacted Latin for the sake of literalness). These are good reading, and do capture something of the power of Senecan tragedy. But teachers should beware that they are often interpretive adaptations rather than literal translations. Ideas are often added to clarify the translators' sense of what a speech is about, for example. These occasionally obtrusive choices make these texts less than optimal for certain kinds of classroom teaching.
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In 1543 Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio, the influential Italian playwright, critic, and writer of novelle (from whom Shakespeare borrowed the plots of Othello and Measure for Measure), judiciously summarized the Renaissance view of Seneca's dramas: "In almost all his tragedies he surpassed (in as far as I can judge) all the Greeks who ever wrote-in wisdom, in gravity, in decorum, in majesty, and in memorable aphorism." Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tragic theater, lyric tragedy Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Moses Hadas, Seneca the Elder, King Eurystheus, Seneca's Oedipus, Dana Gioia, Frank Justus Miller, Mount Cithaeron, Mother Earth New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
In 1543 Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio, the influential Italian playwright, critic, and writer of novelle (from whom Shakespeare borrowed the plots of Othello and Measure for Measure), judiciously summarized the Renaissance view of Seneca's dramas: "In almost all his tragedies he surpassed (in as far as I can judge) all the Greeks who ever wrote-in wisdom, in gravity, in decorum, in majesty, and in memorable aphorism." Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tragic theater, lyric tragedy Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Moses Hadas, Seneca the Elder, King Eurystheus, Seneca's Oedipus, Dana Gioia, Frank Justus Miller, Mount Cithaeron, Mother Earth New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 28
books:
See all 28 books this book cites
4
books
cite this book:
- Hercules Furens (Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum) (Mnemosyne Supplements) (German Edition) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca on 16 pages
- The Phoenician Women (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) by Euripides on page 23, page 236, and page 250
- On Benefits by Lucius Annaeus Seneca on page 18
- The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics) by Suetonius on page 22
- Seven Against Thebes (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) by Aeschylus on page 235
See all 28 books this book cites
- Seneca: Thyestes (Duckworth Companions to Greek & Roman Tragedy) by Peter J. Davis in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Ambitiosa Mors: Suicide and the Self in Roman Thought and Literature (Studies in Classics) by T. D. Hill in Back Matter
- The Metamorphoses of Ovid by Ovid in Back Matter
- A Companion to Latin Literature (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) by Stephen Harrison in Back Matter
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