Seneca, VIII, Tragedies I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra (Loeb Classical Library) (Hardcover)

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

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Product Description

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.

Language Notes

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

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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.com Sales Rank: #419,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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

By	Johannes Platonicus (South Bend, Indiana) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.