You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This 2003 book is a full-length study of Octauia, the only complete Roman drama of an historical subject, or fabula praetexta. The play deals with Nero's divorce from the princess Octavia, Claudius' daughter by Valeria Messalina, and with his subsequent marriage to Poppaea Sabina. Professor Ferri presents a critical edition of the text based on a fresh re-examination of the relevant manuscripts and provides a full discussion of textual issues. In the Introduction he argues that the play, wrongly ascribed to Seneca in our MSS, was composed in the late Flavian period, and that the author relied on pre-existing historical accounts written after the death of Nero. He also discusses in detail the style and language of the play, strongly influenced by Senecan tragedy, its relationship to the other plays of the Senecan corpus, and particularly to Hercules Oetaeus, its stagecraft and post-Classical dramatic conventions, and the author's political position.
Prophecy, Populism, Propaganda in the 'Octavia'
None
Roman plays have been well studied individually (even including fragmentary or spurious ones more recently). However, they have not always been placed into their ‘context’, though plays (just like items in other literary genres) benefit from being seen in context. This edited collection aims to address this issue: it includes 33 contributions by an international team of scholars, discussing single plays or Roman dramatic genres (including comedy, tragedy and praetexta, from both the Republican and imperial periods) in contexts such as the literary tradition, the relationship to works in other literary genres, the historical and social situation, the intellectual background or the later reception. Overall, they offer a rich panorama of the role of Roman drama or individual plays in Roman society and literary history. The insights gained thereby will be of relevance to everyone interested in Roman drama or literature more generally, comparative literature or drama and theatre studies. This contextual approach has the potential of changing the way in which Roman drama is viewed.
Opera developed during a time when the position of women—their rights and freedoms, their virtues and vices, and even the most basic substance of their sexuality—was constantly debated. Many of these controversies manifested themselves in the representation of the historical and mythological women whose voices were heard on the Venetian operatic stage. Drawing upon a complex web of early modern sources and ancient texts, this engaging study is the first comprehensive treatment of women, gender, and sexuality in seventeenth-century opera. Wendy Heller explores the operatic manifestations of female chastity, power, transvestism, androgyny, and desire, showing how the emerging genre was sha...
The first detailed cultural and theatrical history of a major literary form, this landmark introduction examines Roman tragedy and its place at the centre of Rome’s cultural and political life. Analyzing the work of such names as Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius, as well as Seneca and his post-Neronian successors, Anthony J. Boyle delves into detailed discussion on every Roman tragedian whose work survives in substance today. Roman Tragedy examines: the history of Roman tragic techniques and conventions the history of generic form and change the debt that Rome owes to Greece, and text owes to text the birth, development and death of Roman tragedy in the context of the cities evolving, institutions, ideologies and political and social practices tragedy proper and the historical drama (fabula praetexta), which the Romans allied to tragedy. With parallel English translations of Latin quotations, this seminal work not only provides an invaluable resource for students of theatre, Roman political history and cultural history, but it is also accessible to all interested in the social dynamics of writing, spectacle, ideology and power.
This is a verse translation, with commentary, of Octavia, a work of exceptional historical and dramatic interest which deals with events at the court of Nero in the decisive year 62 CE.