Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.