Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus: A Stoic Interpretation of the Greek Myth

Extract

Seneca's shortcomings as a tragedian are a commonplace of literary criticism. On the one hand, the style of Seneca's plays is condemned for being excessively rhetorical; long, undramatic speeches, full of mythological references, alternate with bombastic utterances; or, as J. W. Duff states, comparing Seneca with his Greek predecessors: ‘in the Latin plays one has entered a new world where genius has been replaced by cleverness, and an eminently classic directness of expression by rhetoric.’ On the other hand, Seneca's detractors claim that extravagance of style is matched by a propensity for gory detail, such as the notorious piecing together of Hippolytus at the end of Phaedra. Thus, according to F. L. Lucas:

if only to make up for the unreality of his ultra-academic drama [Seneca] tries to be vivid by being lurid, to stimulate the jaded imagination of his public by screaming atrocity. Seneca does indeed recall the man in Plato who had a morbid desire to view the corpses in the city ditch; long ashamed to yield to such an impulse, at last he ran to the edge and uncovered his eyes with the cry, ‘There, you wretches, take your fill’.