L Annaeus Seneca Troades

A.J. Keulen’s new commentary on Seneca’s Troades is the fruit of a lifetime devotion to this play. This extensive philological commentary on the Troades is a most welcome contribution to the study of Seneca’s plays. Meaning, history and usage of Seneca’s vocabulary are thoroughly discussed. The author provides ample comparison with Senecan prose and rival poets. In addition, the commentary addresses composition and word order, and discusses textual, metrical and grammatical difficulties. A full bibliography and three indices complete this valuable book.

Troades (The Trojan Women) is a fabula crepidata (Roman tragedy with Greek subject) of c. 1179 lines of verse written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca."Troades" ("The Trojan Women") is one of the best-known tragedies of the Roman playwright Seneca the Younger, probably written around 54 CE. Largely based on "The Trojan Women" and "Hecuba" by Euripides, the play explores the folly of war, focussing on the trials of the royal family of the fallen city of Troy (Hecuba, Andromache and their children) as they mourn their past and current sufferings, and the continued assault of the Greeks on the survivors as they look to sacrifice two of the royal progeny, Polyxena and Astyanax.

Seneca (ca 1 B.C.-A.D. 65) sets his Troades in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Troy. The Trojan women (the troades) were to become the prizes of the victorious Greeks. As the play opens, their husbands and sons dead, their city in ruins, they wait, lamenting, to be allotted to their new masters. But before the Greek warriors sail home with their spoils, further horrors are in store. Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, demands the sacrifice of the Trojan princess Polyxena as a blood offering to his dead father. And the prophet Calchas decrees that the little son of Hecuba, wife of the Trojan prince and hero Hector, must be slaughtered. In this cruel situation the thoughts, actions and reactions of both sides, Greek men and Trojan women, create the unfolding drama. The themes of power, culture, freedom, delusion, history and death make Troades a brilliant piece of theatre, whose concerns speak as directly now as they did to the spectacular, histrionic and self-consuming world of early imperial Rome. The English translation, like that of Boyle's earlier Phaedra edition, is printed facing the Latin and aims at verbal and stylistic fidelity. The introduction and detailed commentary fill in the play's background for students of Latin and of Roman civilisation, and for the generally interested reader.

Elaine Fantham provides here a fresh Latin text of Seneca's Traodes and an English version, with an extensive introduction and critical commentary--the first separate treatment of the play in English since Kingery's 1908 edition. Arguing that the Troades was not intended for stage production, the author also discusses the atmosphere of Rome at the time the play was written, when both political and poetic life were felt to be in decline. Although Seneca's plays reflect his experience of tyranny, corruption, and compromise, they are enriched by his contract with the nobler world of poetry. Demonstrating how Seneca loved and imitated the Augustan poets, Professor Fantham reveals the originality that is part of his imitation. Professor Fantham discusses not only the particular characteristics of Seneca's generation but the interplay of his moral and poetic concerns in relationship to his subject--the Trojan captivity.By analyzing his reactions to accounts of this theme in Homer, Euripides, and Augustan epic, she explains his methods and motives in composition. Comparison of the play with Seneca's other works and with other drama exposes some inconsistency, formulaic writing, and excess of ingenuity. It also reveals the influence of epic in loosening his dramtic form and makes apparent his immense vitality. Elaine Fantham is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto and author of Comparative Studies in the Republican Latin Imagery (Toronto). Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The play explores the folly of war, focussing on the trials of the royal family of the fallen city of Troy (Hecuba, Andromache and their children) as they mourn their past and current sufferings, and the continued assault of the Greeks on the survivors as they look to sacrifice two of the royal progeny, Polyxena and Astyanax.

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Excerpt from Three Tragedies of Seneca: Hercules Furens, Troades, Medea The last decade has seen a revival of interest in the Latin Tragedy, which had long been neglected. In many colleges and universities the plays are studied now either in independent courses or as supplementary to work in the Comedy. The neglect, no doubt, was due in part to the want of available editions with English notes. On the Continent of Europe, especially in Germany, much labor has been de voted to the constitution of the text, and'many monographs on various phases of the subject have been published. In England and America, on the other hand, little has been done for many years. It has been the fashion to dismiss the Senecan tragedies airily as unworthy of serious attention; but such criticism seems to have been based in most cases on slight first hand acquaintance with them. Undeniably they have their faults, yet have withal a real interest and value, first as the sole remains of an important branch of Roman literature, second for their Own content and style, and third for their direct and powerful influence upon the English drama of the Elizabethan age. Most of them, furthermore, may be compared directly with their Greek originals, an advantage we do not enjoy in studying the Latin Comedy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.