Editing Seneca the Younger (section)

==Drama==
{{See also|Senecan tragedy|Theatre of ancient Rome}}

[[File:Woodcut illustration of the suicide of Seneca and the attempted suicide of his wife Pompeia Paulina - Penn Provenance Project.jpg|thumb|[[Woodcut]] illustration of the suicide of Seneca and the attempted suicide of his wife [[Pompeia Paulina]]]]

Ten plays are attributed to Seneca, of which most likely eight were written by him.<ref name="asmi23">{{Harvnb|Asmis|Bartsch|Nussbaum|2012|p=xxiii}}</ref> The plays stand in stark contrast to his philosophical works. With their intense emotions, and grim overall tone, the plays seem to represent the antithesis of Seneca's Stoic beliefs.<ref name="asmi20">{{Harvnb|Asmis|Bartsch|Nussbaum|2012|p=xx}}</ref> Up to the 16th century it was normal to distinguish between Seneca the moral philosopher and Seneca the dramatist as two separate people.<ref>{{Harvnb|Laarmann|2013|p=53}}</ref> Scholars have tried to spot certain Stoic themes: it is the uncontrolled passions that generate madness, ruination, and self-destruction.<ref name="gill58">{{Harvnb|Gill|1999|p=58}}</ref> This has a cosmic as well as an ethical aspect, and fate is a powerful, albeit rather oppressive, force.<ref name="gill58"/>

Many scholars have thought, following the ideas of the 19th-century German scholar [[Friedrich Leo]], that Seneca's tragedies were written for recitation only.<ref>The chief modern proponent of this view is Otto Zwierlein, ''Die Rezitationsdramen Senecas'', 1966.</ref> Other scholars think that they were written for performance and that it is possible that actual performance took place in Seneca's lifetime.<ref>George W.M. Harrison (ed.), ''Seneca in performance'', London: Duckworth, 2000.</ref> Ultimately, this issue cannot be resolved on the basis of our existing knowledge.<ref name="asmi23"/> The tragedies of Seneca have been successfully staged in modern times.

The dating of the tragedies is highly problematic in the absence of any ancient references.<ref name="rgm94">{{Harvnb|Reynolds|Griffin|Fantham|2012|p=94}}</ref> A parody of a lament from ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules Furens]]'' appears in the ''[[Apocolocyntosis]]'', which implies a date before AD 54 for that play.<ref name="rgm94"/> A relative chronology has been proposed on metrical grounds.<ref>John G. Fitch, "Sense-pauses and Relative Dating in Seneca, Sophocles and Shakespeare," ''American Journal of Philology'' 102 (1981) 289–307.</ref> The plays are not all based on the Greek pattern; they have a five-act form and differ in many respects from extant [[theatre of Ancient Greece|Attic drama]], and while the influence of [[Euripides]] on some of these works is considerable, so is the influence of [[Virgil]] and [[Ovid]].<ref name="rgm94"/>

Seneca's plays were widely read in [[medieval]] and [[Renaissance]] [[Europe]]an [[university|universities]] and strongly influenced [[tragedy|tragic drama]] in that time, such as [[Elizabethan England]] ([[William Shakespeare]] and other playwrights), France ([[Pierre Corneille|Corneille]] and [[Jean Racine|Racine]]), and the Netherlands ([[Joost van den Vondel]]).<ref>A.J. Boyle, ''Tragic Seneca: An Essay in the Theatrical Tradition.'' London: Routledge, 1997.</ref> English translations of Seneca's tragedies appeared in print in the mid-16th century, with all ten published collectively in 1581.<ref>Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. ''His Tenne Tragedies''. Thomas Newton, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966, p. xlv. {{ASIN|B000N3NP6K}}</ref> He is regarded as the source and inspiration for what is known as "Revenge Tragedy", starting with [[Thomas Kyd]]'s ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'' and continuing well into the [[Jacobean era]].<ref>G. Braden, ''Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition,'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.</ref> ''[[Thyestes (Seneca)|Thyestes]]'' is considered Seneca's masterpiece,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a6cjAQAAIAAJ&q=Thyestes|title=Masterpieces of World Literature|page=vii|last=Magill|first=Frank Northen|publisher=Harper & Row Limited|date=1989|isbn=0060161442}}</ref> and has been described by scholar [[Dana Gioia]] as "one of the most influential plays ever written".<ref name="JHU">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tpD1vAkr76gC|title=Seneca: The Tragedies|page=xli|publisher=JHU Press|date=1994|isbn=0801849322}}</ref> ''Medea'' is also highly regarded,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9jqOAgAAQBAJ|title=Brill's Companion to Seneca: Philosopher and Dramatist|page=594|author1-last=Heil|author1-first=Andreas|author2-last=Damschen|author2-first=Gregor|publisher=Brill|date=2013|isbn=978-9004217089}} "''[[Medea (Seneca)|Medea]]'' is often considered the masterpiece of Seneca's earlier plays, [...]"</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jlXKM1jBhswC|title=Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity|page=399|author1-last=Sluiter|author1-first=Ineke|author2-last=Rosen|author2-first=Ralph M.|publisher=Brill|date=2012|isbn=978-9004231672}}</ref> and was praised along with ''Phaedra'' by [[T. S. Eliot]].<ref name="JHU"/>