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In this edition Professor Tarrant provides a much needed critical text.
The tragic myth of Agamemnon, Mycenae's 'king of kings', who sacrificed his own daughter in order to sack the great city of Troy and returned home only to be assassinated by his wife and her lover, has been a constant source of fascination for writers and artists from classical Greece right up to the present day. The ancient Romans were drawn to the myth, but Seneca's tragedy is the only dramatic treatment from this tradition to have survived intact: often undervalued, it is in fact intellectually and poetically one of his richest plays - dramatically innovative, spectacular, and pervasively self-reflective. Its strong lyric and theatrical qualities - from polymetric choral odes to powerful meditative soliloquies-perfectly complement Seneca's complex presentation of the slaying of husband, father, and king and his exploration of such attendant issues as family, despotism, knowledge, gender, political order, freedom, vengeance, and death. Also containing extant Latin literature's most complex representation of two iconic women of classical myth (and occasional feminist paradigms), Clytemnestra and Cassandra, the tragedy ably transcends the narrow context of late Julio-Claudian Rome and contains much that speaks pointedly to our times. This new full-scale edition of Seneca's Agamemnon offers a comprehensive introduction, newly edited Latin text, English verse translation designed for both performance and high-level academic study, and detailed exegetic, analytic, and interpretative commentary. The aim throughout has been to elucidate the text dramatically as well as philologically, and to locate the play firmly in its contemporary historical and theatrical context and in the ensuing literary and dramatic tradition. As such, its substantial influence on European drama, opera, and ballet from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries is given especial emphasis throughout; this and the accessible notes on the text make the edition of particular use not only to scholars and students of classics, but also of comparative literature and drama, and to anyone interested in the cultural dynamics of literary reception and in the interplay between theatre and history.
Surveys important Greek and Roman authors, plays, characters, genres, historical figures and more.
Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the first play in the Oresteia trilogy, is one of the most influential theatrical texts in the global canon. In performance, translation, adaptation, along with sung and danced interpretations, it has been familiar in the Greek world and the Roman empire, and from the Renaissance to the contemporary stage. It has been central to the aesthetic and intellectual avant-garde as well as to radical politics of all complexions and to feminist thinking. Contributors to this interdisciplinary collection of eighteen essays on its performance history include classical scholars, theatre historians, and experts in English and comparative literature. All Greek and Latin has been translated; the book is generously illustrated, and supplemented with the useful research aid of a chronological appendix of performances.
With insight and clarity, Norman Pratt makes available to the general reader an understanding of the major elements that shaped Seneca's plays. These he defines as Neo-Stoicism, declamatory rhetoric, and the chaotic, violent conditions of Senecan society. Seneca's drama shows the nature of this society and uses freely the declamatory rhetorical techniques familiar to any well-educated Roman. But the most important element, Pratt argues, is Neo-Stoicism, including technical aspects of this philosophy that previously have escaped notice. With these ingredients Seneca transformed the themes and characters inherited from Greek drama, casting them in a form that so radically departs from the earlier drama that Seneca's plays require a different mode of criticism. "The greatest need in the criticism of this drama is to understand its legitimacy as drama of a new kind in the anicent tradition," Pratt writes. "It cannot be explained as an inferior imitation of Greek tragedy because, though inferior, it is not imitative in the strict sense of the word and has its own nature and motivation." Pratt shows the functional interrelationship among philosophy, rhetoric, and "society" in Seneca's nine plays and assesses the plays' dramatic qualities. He finds that however melodramatic the plays may seem to the modern reader, Seneca's own career as Nero's mentor, statesman, and spokesman was scarcely less tumultuous than the lives of his characters. When the Neo-Stoicism and rhetoric of the plays are charged with Seneca's own tortured, passionate life, Pratt concludes, "The result is inevitably melodrama, melodrama of such energy and force that it changed the course of Western drama." Originally published in 1983. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
After centuries of neglect there is renewed interest in the life and works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (or Seneca the Younger, c 4 BCE-65 CE). At one time an advisor at court to Nero, Seneca and his political career came to ruin when he was implicated in a later plot to kill the capricious and matricidal emperor, and compelled to commit suicide. Discredited through collusion, or at least association, with a notorious and tyrannical regime, Seneca's ideas were for a time also considered derivative of Greek stoicism and thus inferior to the real thing. In this first in-depth introduction to be published for many years, Christopher Star shows what a remarkable statesman, dramatist and philosopher his subject actually was. Seneca's original contributions to political philosophy and the philosophy of the emotions were considerable. He was a favourite authority of Tertullian, who saw Seneca as proto-believer and early humanist. And he is a key figure in the history of ideas and the Renaissance, as well as in literature and drama. This new survey does full justice to his significance.
Elaine Fantham provides here a fresh Latin text of Seneca's Traodes and an English version, with an extensive introduction and critical commentary--the first separate treatment of the play in English since Kingery's 1908 edition. Arguing that the Troades was not intended for stage production, the author also discusses the atmosphere of Rome at the time the play was written, when both political and poetic life were felt to be in decline. Although Seneca's plays reflect his experience of tyranny, corruption, and compromise, they are enriched by his contract with the nobler world of poetry. Demonstrating how Seneca loved and imitated the Augustan poets, Professor Fantham reveals the originality that is part of his imitation. Professor Fantham discusses not only the particular characteristics of Seneca's generation but the interplay of his moral and poetic concerns in relationship to his subject--the Trojan captivity.By analyzing his reactions to accounts of this theme in Homer, Euripides, and Augustan epic, she explains his methods and motives in composition. Comparison of the play with Seneca's other works and with other drama exposes some inconsistency, formulaic writing, and excess of ingenuity. It also reveals the influence of epic in loosening his dramtic form and makes apparent his immense vitality. Elaine Fantham is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto and author of Comparative Studies in the Republican Latin Imagery (Toronto). Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This volume is the first systematic study of Seneca’s interaction with earlier literature of a variety of genres and traditions. It examines this interaction and engagement in his prose works, offering interpretative readings that are at once groundbreaking and stimulating to further study. Focusing on the Dialogues, the Naturales quaestiones, and the Moral Epistles, the volume includes multi- perspectival studies of Seneca’s interaction with all the great Latin epics (Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid), and discussions of how Seneca’s philosophical thought is informed by Hellenistic doxography, forensic rhetoric and declamation, the Homeric tradition, Euripidean tragedy and Greco-Roman mythology. The studies analyzes the philosophy behind Seneca’s incorporating exact quotations from earlier tradition (including his criteria of selectivity) and Seneca’s interaction with ideas, trends and techniques from different sources, in order to elucidate his philosophical ideas and underscore his original contribution to the discussion of established philosophical traditions. They also provide a fresh interpretation of moral issues with particular application to the Roman worldview as fashioned by the mos maiorum. The volume, finally, features detailed discussion of the ways in which Seneca, the author of philosophical prose, puts forward his stance towards poetics and figures himself as a poet. Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings will be of interest not only to those working on Seneca’s philosophical works, but also to anyone working on Latin literature and intertextuality in the ancient world.