Phantasmagoria and Idyll: An Element of Seneca's Phaedra

Extract

If the Phaedra is Seneca's best-known play, it has suffered more than any other from inadequate or misdirected critical attention. Most accounts have been preoccupied with its similarity or dissimilarity to the Hippolytus of Euripides, or else with its rhetorical luxuriance. The first group has spoken of it as a not very meritorious rewrite of Euripides' play (Version I, II, or mixed). Méridier, for example, in his Hippolyte d'Euripide devotes a chapter to the Phaedra, giving a résumé of the plot, listing parallels and discrepancies with the Hippolytus, and providing by way of conclusion an ‘étude littéraire’. In this he treats the play as mere adaptation, remarking ‘on voit ce que l'œuvre de Sénèque a perdu au changement’. Where Seneca has introduced originalities, ‘ces scenes nouvelles ne témoignent pas toujours … d'un art très heureux’.