Seneca's Characters

Abstract

Seneca's Characters addresses one of the most enduring and least theorised elements of literature: fictional character and its relationship to actual, human selfhood. Where does the boundary between character and person lie? While the characters we encounter in texts are obviously not 'real' people, they still possess person-like qualities that stimulate our attention and engagement. How is this relationship formulated in contexts of theatrical performance, where characters are set in motion by actual people, actual bodies and voices? This book addresses such questions by focusing on issues of coherence, imitation, appearance and autonomous action. It argues for the plays' sophisticated treatment of character, their acknowledgement of its purely fictional ontology alongside deep – and often dark – appreciation of its quasi-human qualities. Seneca's Characters offers a fresh perspective on the playwright's powerful tragic aesthetics that will stimulate scholars and students alike.

Atreus Callidus : The Tragic Afterlife of Plautus's Comic Hero

“…Given these correspondences, it is tempting to see in Atreus's assurance of Thyestes' arrival (fratrem uidebit "he will see his brother" Thy. 292) a reflection of Chrysalus's and Pseudolus's quasi-oracular dabis: this is going to happen because Atreus will make it 36 Characters' self-conscious, metatheatrical knowledge of their own and each other's roles is a mainstay of scholarship on Seneca tragedy; see especially Boyle (1997) 112-37;Fitch and McElduff (2002); Bexley (2022) 23-98.…”

“…Here, again, we see the play's mixed genre in action, as the Fury's development of a tragic plot is taken over by Atreus in the guise of the seruus callidus. 40 Explored by Bexley (2022) 78-80.…”

“…This is to be expected: some degree of self-reflexivity can be found in almost all plays that deal with trickery, and the popularity of deception plots across all genres of Western drama rests largely on their evocation of the dramatic medium. Caution must therefore be exercised when investigating the potential coincidence of metatheatre in Plautus and 51 The language of return and reunion in Act 5 may evoke equivalent scenes in palliata, as per Bexley (2022) 59.…”

“…performer, the role of 'viewer' is assigned less to Philoctetes than to Neoptolemos himself, while Philoctetes becomes a spectatorial object; 77 Theoclumenos, in Euripides' Helen, is duped by an intricate performance from Helen and Menelaus but his reception of that performance is not fundamentally framed in terms of 'viewing' (and half the trick is, in any case, reported by the messenger); Pentheus, in the Bacchae, is deceived by Dionysus, and even though his stated aim is to spy on the women's rituals, his role within Dionysus' own plot is that of an actor, not a viewer. The closest we find to a Plautine scene is the trickery of Daos and Chairestratos in Menander's Aspis, where the 76 On Atreus's desire for recognition/validation, see Braden (1985) 61; Littlewood (2004) 181-83;Bexley (2022) 60-98. 77 See Falkner (1998) and Ringer (1998) 101-25 for further analysis of the play's metatheatrical qualities.…”