2 - Staging Thyestes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
THE POETICS OF FUROR
libet reverti
(Seneca, Agamemnon 12)Quis inferorum sede ab infausta extrahit
avido fugaces ore captantem cibos?
quis male deorum Tantalo visas domos
ostendit iterum? peius inventum est siti
arente in undis aliquid et peius fame
hiante semper?
Who drags me forth from the accursed abode of the dead, where I snatch at food ever-fleeing from my hungry lips? What god shows Tantalus again the homes he saw to his ruin? Has something worse been invented than parching thirst in the middle of water, worse than ever-gaping hunger?
The Thyestes begins by staging the process of its own construction. Tantalus not only wonders at the unexpected turn his punishment is taking, but also questions the very existence – the theatrical essence – of the drama that is bringing him on the scene. His questions, while ostensibly bearing on his fate as a mythic character, also look in anguish at the unfolding of the tragic action, as if he watches himself from the outside becoming a character of a dramatic text.
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- The Passions in PlayThyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama, pp. 26 - 69Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003