Some generic problems of Senecan drama

Ferenczi, Attila (2001) Some generic problems of Senecan drama. Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 41 (3-4). pp. 255-261. ISSN 0044-5975

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Abstract

The messenger speeches in some of Seneca's tragedies (the most extensive ones can be read in Agamemnon and Hercules Furens) constitute special epic details of the works. Their narrative technique, intertextual references and representation of time link them not with the dramatic literary form, but with the epic one, and Vergil's Aeneid is, beyond any doubt, their most important 'hypertextus'. The setting of the messenger reports has not been subordinated to the dramatic efficacy of the main conflict, they produce rather a generic multiplicity. The reform of closed literary forms and the generic heterogeneity are not unique phenomena in the literary life of this period; the meaning and importance of the innovation made by Seneca cannot be judged separately from the most important literary achievements of the period: Luc an's Bellum Civile and Petronius' Satyricon

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