Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy

Perry, Curtis

doi:10.1017/9781108866316

Cited by 13 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…92 Hence a line that evokes the world of Plautine comedy also turns out to have roots in Senecan 91 Despite precedents in Greek drama -noted by Bain (1977) 155-56 -the convention is characteristically Plautine: see Christenson (2020) 194. 92 Perry (2020) 79. See also Taylor (1988).…”

Section: Atrean Afterlives: Hamlet and Iagomentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bexley

2023

apa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article argues that the model of the Plautine seruus callidus underpins Seneca's Atreus, whose similarities to the clever slave include verbal mastery, metatheatrical plotting, eavesdropping, and cultivating a special relationship with the audience. Analysis of these parallels is situated in the broader frame of theater history to show how comedy can influence tragedy and how the Thyestes ' blend of tragic and comic material makes Atreus Seneca's most distinctive and enduring character. The paper's final section addresses Atreus's afterlife, examining how Shakespeare reimagines the Senecan protagonist's tragicomic mix in the characters of Hamlet and Iago.

show abstract

Section: Atrean Afterlives: Hamlet and Iagomentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bexley

2023

apa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Shakespeare Unlearned

Zucker

2024

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Shakespeare Unlearned dances along the borderline of sense and nonsense in early modern texts, revealing overlooked opportunities for understanding and shared community in words and ideas that might in the past have been considered too silly to matter much for serious scholarship. Each chapter pursues a self-knowing, gently ironic study of the lexicon and scripting of words and acts related to what has been called ‘stupidity’ in work by Shakespeare and other authors. Each centers on significant, often comic situations that emerge—on stage, in print, and in the critical and editorial tradition pertaining to the period—when rigorous scholars and teachers meet language or characters or plotlines that exceed and at times entirely undermine the goals and premises of scholarly rigor. And each suggests that a framing of putative ‘stupidity’ pursued through lexicography, editorial glossing, literary criticism, and pedagogical practice can help us put Shakespeare and semantically obscure historical literature more generally to new communal ends. Words such as ‘baffle’ in Twelfth Night or ‘twangling’ and ‘jingling’ in The Tempest, and characters such as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Holofernes the pedant, might in the past have been considered unworthy of critical attention—too light or obvious to matter much for our understanding of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This book’s meditation on the limits of learnedness and the opportunities presented by a philology of stupidity argues otherwise.

show abstract

List of Figures

Zucker

2024

Shakespeare Unlearned

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Shakespeare and Senecan Tragedy

Cited by 13 publications

References 37 publications

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

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

Shakespeare Unlearned

List of Figures

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About