Tragedies, Volume I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra (Loeb Classical Library) (v. 1) [Hardcover]

Seneca (Author), John G. Fitch (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Loeb Classical Library | Publication Date: September 30, 2002

Seneca is a figure of first importance in both Roman politics and literature: a leading adviser to Nero who attempted to restrain the emperor's megalomania; a prolific moral philosopher; and the author of verse tragedies that strongly influenced Shakespeare and other Renaissance dramatists. Here is the first of a new two-volume edition of Seneca's tragedies, with a fully annotated translation facing the Latin text.

Seneca's plays depict intense passions and interactions in an appropriately strong rhetoric. Their perspective is much bleaker than that of his prose writings. In this new translation John Fitch conveys the force of Seneca's dramatic language and the lyric quality of his choral odes.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Latin (translation)
Original Language: Latin

About the Author

John G. Fitch is Professor Emeritus of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Victoria.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Loeb Classical Library; annotated edition edition (September 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067499602X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674996021
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #253,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, statesman, philosopher, advocate and man of letters, was born in Spain around 4BC. He rose to prominence at Rome, pursuing a double career in the courts and political life, until Claudius sent him into exile exile on the island of Corsica for eight years. Recalled in AD49, he was appointed tutor to the boy who was to become, in AD54, the emperor Nero. Seneca acted for eight years as Nero's unofficial chief minister until Nero too turned against him and he retired from public life to devote himself to philosophy and writing. In AD65, following the discovery of a plot against the emperor, he and many others were compelled by Nero to commit suicide.

Customer Reviews

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seneca: Rome's Great Stoic Philosopher Is Also No Average Poet, December 2, 2007

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Johannes Platonicus (South Bend, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tragedies, Volume I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra (Loeb Classical Library) (v. 1) (Hardcover)

One of Rome's greatest philosophers was also one of Rome's greatest poets and dramatists. Seneca's versatility and prowess as an author will become evident to the reader who examines the contrast between the crude but dignified prose of his Stoic Epistles and the stunning elegance of his verse in the pathos laden Tragedies. Now it is simply amazing that the stern-browed champion of Roman Stoicism would don the laurel and take up the tragedian's genre. Perhaps he sought to indoctrinate the stage-crazed Roman mob with the tenets of Stoicism, since he worked many stoic ideals into the Tragedies' themes? It seems likely that he directed his program of moralization through the medium of public entertainment. Whatever the case may be, Seneca has handed us poetry and drama that rivals his Latin predecessors, Terrance and Plautus. And even though he used the Greek tragedies as a model, Seneca's originality emerges as he reworks those classic Grecian themes to fit his Latin audience, adorning them with a stoic twist. A testament to the sublimity and timelessness of the Tragedies is their legacy; their presence is felt in the hallowed works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ben Johnson [Oxford Classical Dictionary, Seneca]. Overall, the enthusiast of the classic drama, the lover of Latin poetry, and the collector of ancient works can hardly go without these two volumes, which are here presented in a fresh, vibrant and lucid, English translation. The scholarly analyses and annotations that accompany the text will be welcoming and profitable to readers as well.