International Journal of English and Literature The Senecan Tragedy and its Adaptation for the Elizabethan Stage: A Study of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (original) (raw)
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There is no doubt that the rise of the Greek drama, as evident in the classical writings of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had left a predominant impact on the Elizabethan writings of comedies. However, it was the tragedies that stood supreme. Yet, their appeal to the mass Elizabethan audience for their brutal images displayed on stage would not have been emotionally captivating had it not been for the Roman classic works of Ennuis and Seneca which paved the way for an era ever destined for genius minds in the theatrical world. Imitated by the Italian and French literary works, the Senecan tragedies, in particular, had indeed inspired the Elizabethan theatre, for they were widely modeled by some great Elizabethan dramatists. Hence, this paper is an attempt to revisit the historical writings of Seneca and observe his artistic vision of staging tragedies as adapted and projected in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.
Ramus
Did Sophocles or Seneca exercise a greater influence on Renaissance drama? While the twenty-first century public might assume the Greek dramatist, in recent decades literary scholars have come to appreciate that the model of tragedy for the Renaissance was the plays of the Roman Seneca rather than those of the Athenian tragedians. In his important essay on Seneca and Shakespeare written in 1932, T.S. Eliot wrote that Senecan sensibility was ‘the most completely absorbed and transmogrified, because it was already the most diffused’ in Shakespeare's world. Tony Boyle, one of the leading rehabilitators of Seneca in recent years, has rightly said, building on the work of Robert Miola and Gordon Braden in particular, that ‘Seneca encodes Renaissance theatre’ from the time that Albertino Mussato wrote his neo-Latin tragedy Ecerinis in 1315 on into the seventeenth century. The present essay offers a complement and supplement to previous scholarship arguing that Seneca enjoyed a status ...
Senecan Drama ve Etkisi üzerine İspanyol Trajedi ve Revenger en Tragedy (Seri A)
Cankaya University Journal of Arts and Sciences, 2006
Senecan drama was not only a turning point in the development of Western tragic drama but also it has great impression upon the Elizabethans after the translation of Seneca into English between 1559 and 1581. Senecan tragedy strongly sympathizes blood-revenge for murder or flagrant injury, or else a serious revenge from motives of jealousy. During a close reading of The Spanish Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, it has been noticed that Thomas Kyd and Thomas Middleton/ Tourneur have been affected from Senecan drama. In The Revenger's Tragedy the protagonist, Vindice, achieves to take his revenge and in The Spanish Tragedy Hieronimo prepares a play to take his revenge. This article attempts to analyze the elements of Senecan drama used in The Spanish Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy.
Jordi Coral Escolá, "Seneca, what Seneca? The Chorus in The Spanish Tragedy"
The question of Senecan influence on Elizabethan tragedy has been fiercely debated since J.W. Cunliffe published his seminal study in 1893. In the last half-century massive critical attention to this problem has been renewed. Recent interpretations of Senecan influence vary enormously, but there continues to be a tacit convergence on the view established by Cunliffe, namely that influence must be understood as a matter of local motif borrowing. This view is underpinned by the assumption that Senecan drama is made up of loosely related rhetorical exercises and that it thus lacks any coherent tragic vision. Building on recent wo rk that challenges this bias against the plays as plays, this article re-examines the function of the Chorus in Seneca in order to transcend its interpretation as a static appendage of Stoic commonplaces. Rather than interrupting the flow of the action, the Senecan Chorus is carefully designed to evolve with the former so that it generates an overwhelming tragic climax. This climax is that of the avenger’s furor, understood as tragic solipsism. It is this evolving Chorus and its vengeful madness that Kyd assimilated into his pioneering play of the 1580s.
2016
This chapter surveys the reception of Senecan tragedy in sixteenth-century England, particularly in the 1560s. The chapter addresses traditions of transmission and translation, the place of Seneca in mid-sixteenth century literary culture, approaches to translation and adaptation, critical reception, and the influence of the mid-sixteenth century translations on later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dramatists.
The Audience in Tragedy: A Senecan View of Education through Theater
Paideia on Stage, 2023
This chapter explores the pedagogical potential of Seneca's theater. It is divided in five parts: in the first part, I emphasize the importance of audience and theatrical metaphors in the Senecan pedagogical project, as expressed in his Letters. In the second part, I suggest a reading of Seneca's view on poetry and theater in his Letters. Tragedy is presented as a higher genre more conducive to moral learning and philosophical reflection, distinguished from comedy or mimes. In the third and fourth parts, I propose a reading of Seneca's tragedies incorporating a metatheatrical emphasis, with characters acting as spectators on the stage, influencing the reactions of the actual audience. Through the connection between rhetoric and tragedy in Roman literature, I demonstrate the importance of the audience through a reading of sententiae in several Senecan tragedies. The audience's expectations during Seneca's time were likely influenced by the rhetorical tradition, particularly the inclusion of rhetorical exercises such as controuersiae and suasoriae. The portrayal of the audience as both observers and participants in the tragic events invites reflection on the fragility of human existence and the lessons to be learned from tragedy. Finally, understanding Seneca's writings in their historical context is crucial to fully grasping his thoughts on the purpose and value of theater in education.
Art and Artifice of Shakespearean Tragedy: A Critical Approach
International Journal of Language and Literature, 2018
The dramatists of ancient Greece fixed the character and features of tragedy, and the Greek philosopher Aristotle analyzed and defined its nature. But Shakespeare, as a romantic playwright in Elizabethan England, violated the rules set and propagated by the classics for the sake of being truer to nature. Shakespeare"s concept of tragedy may be illustrated from three main points of views, which distinguish him as a dramatist, they are: Tragic Hero, Tragic Action (Tragic Plot) and Tragic Appeal (Tragic Catharsis), aspects which this paper attempts to stress and analyze. Through critical analysis of Shakespeare"s four major tragedies, this paper attempts also to highlight the features that constitute a Shakespearean tragedy. The paper also tries to show how a Shakespearean tragedy is different from the classical tragedy of ancient Greece. The researcher concluded that a Shakespearean tragedy moves on several plans all at once. It reflects the contradictions of social life during the Renaissance culture; it anticipates the development of realism and romanticism in the nineteenth century, and it reveals the hidden depths of the human mind unknown to literature before. Thus it is of universal appeal. Above all, it is the finest evidence of Shakespeare"s humanism which shows such a profound understanding of the human soul in pain.
2021
Vengeance is rediscovered in English Renaissance drama from the Senecan model of tragedy which brings murder, madness, violence, and bloodshed in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres. The golden age of English drama coincides with the translation of the works of Seneca in the mid-sixteenth century. Seneca, on that occasion both with substance and form, influenced the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, and revenge tragedies in the Senecan manner became immensely popular. English condition interestingly turns out to be more feasible to represent the Senecan treatment of violence and bloodshed on stage. The fascination of Elizabethan, and especially Jacobean audiences, to see violent displays of blood revenge occur before their eyes prompts the playwright to fabricate the theme of violence in their plays. Aiming to Elucidate the vogue of Senecan violent scheme in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, this paper will be focusing on Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_, and Webster’s _The Duchess of Malfi_, as well as pivoting on Senecan dramatic elements as the root of dramatic violence.