Prof. Anna Basile
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
...regnabit. est haec poena (Sen. Phoen. 646): the (De)Construction of Power in Seneca's tragedies
ABSTRACT: Seneca frequently reflects on imperial power in his prose works and examines Nero's behavior at his time. In the tragedies he attempts to give concreteness to this theme through the myths and, more specifically, the words. My research aims to investigate, first of all, which terms describe the behavioral characteristics of tyrants in the tragic corpus. I will also analyze how Seneca intends to demonstrate, throught these words, the failure of a model proposed in the prose writings.
Furthermore, I will focalize on Seneca's Phoenissae in which Oedipus myth is a paradigmatic example of the inability of a tyrant to express his feelings. In this drama this unfortunate king attempts to tell about his fault and he recognizes that there aren't particular words to define his crime. Without words he can't overcome his past and he is totally alone with his emotional distress
Professore a contratto di Lingua e Letteratura Latina presso il Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell'Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (a. a. 2021-present).