Four Tragedies and Octavia

Seneca, E. Watling

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Penguin
01 December 1976

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Plays & playscripts; Penguin Black Classics

Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented by fatal passion for her stepson. In The Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and Andromache await their fates at the hands of the conquering Greeks, and Oedipus follows the downfall of the royal House of Thebes. Octavia is a grim commentary on Nero's tyrannical rule and the execution of his wife, with Seneca himself appearing as an ineffective counsellor attempting to curb the atrocities of the emperor.

By: Seneca
Translated by: E. Watling
Imprint: Penguin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 225g
ISBN: 9780140441741
ISBN 10: 0140441743
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 01 December 1976
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Seneca: Four Tragedies And OctaviaIntroduction Acknowledgement Thyestes Phaedra (or Hippolytus) The Trojan Women Oedipus Octavia Appendix I. Elizabethan translations and imitations Appendix II. Passages from Seneca's prose

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4BC - AD65) was born in Cordoba, Spain, where he was brought up studying the traditional virtues of republican Roman life. He became a teacher of rhetoric but attracted attention for his incisive style of writing. Closely linked to Nero, his death was ordered by the emperor in AD65. Seneca committed suicide. E.F. Watling had translated many Ancient Classics for Penguin, including plays of Sophocles and Plautus. He died in 1990.