Titus Andronicus

the life of Seneca
Seneca was a Roman stoic, playwright, philosopher, satirist, tragic poet, rhetorician and statesman.

He was exiled by the Emperor Claudius in AD 41, allegedly for adultery with the emperor's niece. He went on to tutor the young Nero and became an advisor to him when Nero was made emperor. For a while, he is said to have held the emperor's excessive behaviour in check but later found his position untenable and retired from court in AD62. Later Nero accused him of involvement in a plot to assassinate him and ordered Seneca to commit suicide.

Seneca's plays aimed to teach Stoicism, a system of thought which originated in Athens during the 3rd century BC and which flourished in Rome (c. 100 BC - c. AD 200). Stoicism greatly influenced Christian thinking. Seneca's plays were often re-workings of the Greek dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes and include:

Medea

Oedipus

The Trojan Women

The Phoenician Women

Agamemnon

Phaedra

All nine of Seneca's plays were translated into English between the years 1559 and 1581 and Shakespeare would no doubt have been familiar with his work. For an account of Seneca's influence, see T.S. Eliot's essays 'Seneca in Elizabethan Translation' and 'Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca' (both published in 1927).

the Senecan model
Seneca's tragedies were divided into 5 acts

Seneca's tragic heroes develop courage and dignity as they face death

Typically in a Senecan tragedy, a Cloud of Evil is followed by the defeat of Reason by Evil which in turn gives way to the Triumph of Evil (as in The Trojan Women)

The stage is often corpse-strewn at the end.

Seneca's influence
Seneca's plays have greatly influenced the development of drama in the modern era, in particular the work of Renaissance playwrights such as Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe.

written to be read aloud
Some of Seneca's works were dramas of blood and horror intended to be read rather than performed for they contain seemingly unstageable elements:

the piecing together of Hippolytus' dismembered body by his father

Medea killing her son and flinging down his corpse from the palace roof to his father below


			Seneca was a Roman stoic, playwright, philosopher, satirist, tragic poet, rhetorician and statesman. He was exiled by the Emperor Claudius in AD 41, allegedly for adultery with the emperor's niece. He went on to tutor the young Nero and became an advisor to him when Nero was made emperor. For a while, he is said to have held the emperor's excessive behaviour in check but later found his position untenable and retired from court in AD62. Later Nero accused him of involvement in a plot to assassinate him and ordered Seneca to commit suicide. Seneca's plays aimed to teach Stoicism, a system of thought which originated in Athens during the 3rd century BC and which flourished in Rome (c. 100 BC - c. AD 200). Stoicism greatly influenced Christian thinking. Seneca's plays were often re-workings of the Greek dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes and include: Medea Oedipus The Trojan Women The Phoenician Women Agamemnon Phaedra All nine of Seneca's plays were translated into English between the years 1559 and 1581 and Shakespeare would no doubt have been familiar with his work. For an account of Seneca's influence, see T.S. Eliot's essays 'Seneca in Elizabethan Translation' and 'Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca' (both published in 1927). Seneca's tragedies were divided into 5 acts Seneca's tragic heroes develop courage and dignity as they face death Typically in a Senecan tragedy, a Cloud of Evil is followed by the defeat of Reason by Evil which in turn gives way to the Triumph of Evil (as in The Trojan Women) The stage is often corpse-strewn at the end. Seneca's plays have greatly influenced the development of drama in the modern era, in particular the work of Renaissance playwrights such as Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe. Some of Seneca's works were dramas of blood and horror intended to be read rather than performed for they contain seemingly unstageable elements: the piecing together of Hippolytus' dismembered body by his father Medea killing her son and flinging down his corpse from the palace roof to his father below