Domesticating Seneca

Abstract

From the late seventeenth century, Seneca has had a bad press in England. Heavily rhetorical and declamatory, the plays were repeatedly declared unsuited to the stage. For the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, however, Seneca was a model for drama, an essential resource. The plays were taught in school, and translations of all ten plays attributed to Seneca appeared between 1560 and 1581. Not only the early Shakespeare, especially Titus Andronicus, but even plays like King Lear and Othello reflect Seneca’s influence. This is largely invisible to us because our way of performing Shakespeare renders soliloquies meditative rather than declamatory, and strives for naturalism rather than stylization.