tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post4129548376904737985..comments2024-03-18T19:05:39.072-07:00Comments on Morphosis: "(Thyes)tes me, tease me / Tease me, tease me baby / Till I lose control"Adam Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-71807702931580017692017-01-29T00:25:15.263-08:002017-01-29T00:25:15.263-08:00I recommend the new Fitch version, actually. He ac...I recommend the new Fitch version, actually. He acknowledges that outside of Classics departments, most people nowadays are interested in Seneca's tragedies because they so directly informed Elizabethan and Jacobean dramaturgy; such that you can't really get a grip on Shakespeare without some sense of him. So he adds-in lots of footnotes quoting lines from WS, Ben Jonson, Middleton etc where they are reworkings of Senecan originals. It's fascinating, really.<br /><br />As for Stoicism and religion, I'd have to say: not really. Zeno the founder was pretty materialist, but later Stoics were quite religious actually, and one reason why Seneca was so widely taught in medieval and Renaissance schools (and hence was in a position so profoundly to influence Shakespeare, Jonson etc) was that he was taken up by the medieval Christian church as a virtuous pagan -- his brand of stoicism was deemed wholly compatible with the church's ideas.Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-38600330981606132012017-01-28T15:41:19.939-08:002017-01-28T15:41:19.939-08:00I've got the Loeb Seneca plays, although it...I've got the Loeb Seneca plays, although it's the previous edition - translations by Frank Justus Miller, dating from 1917. I think I read all of them when I was preparing for the Latin paper in the Cambridge entrance exam, the best part of 40 years ago. I've got no recollection of Thyestes, though; all I remember is the first line of Phaedra (which I recognised from a BBC dramatisation of Tom Brown's Schooldays) and an excruciatingly long and detailed description of an animal sacrifice, steaming blue entrails and all. Don't know which one that was in - probably not this one.<br /><br />I like the point about childhood and the nightmarish reality of a godless - or rather god-forsaken - world. But didn't the Stoics effectively, or officially, inhabit a godless universe? Stoicism makes an odd fit with the childish exuberance of the horrors indulged in here. Perhaps one way to complete this thought would be to say that humankind cannot bear very much godlessness, and when pushed to imagine it we find ourselves picturing the nightmare of godforsakenness instead: a God who <b>is</b> there (or could be if he wanted) but has abandoned us.<br /><br />Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-18221607921903282562017-01-27T05:58:19.139-08:002017-01-27T05:58:19.139-08:00I shall take the author's privilege to silentl...I shall take the author's privilege to silently emend the text, and leave your comment hanging like the random ravings of a strange person. But I want you to know, I do so whilst wearing silk stockings.Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-11598105841602000952017-01-27T04:26:26.533-08:002017-01-27T04:26:26.533-08:00I can only apologise that my only response is to n...I can only apologise that my only response is to note that you wrote "Some people get turned on MY silk stockings". I assume you meant "by", or (less likely) "by my".Neil Willcoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07166832958072749813noreply@blogger.com