STYLISTIC DEVICES IN SENECA’S HERCULES FURENS: MYTH, RECEPTION, AND THE POETICS OF TRAGEDY

Abstract

Seneca’s Hercules Furens presents one version of a well-known myth in literary, artistic, and philosophical tradition. I will identify some stylistic devices of the tragedy in order to make explicit the way in which Hercules’s own ambivalence is related to Seneca’s poetic and generic praxis. I will focalize upon three axes: a. the conceptual ?uctuation around Hercules’s uirtus and labores; b. the thematic inversion through uictor / uictus module, and c. the imaginary of hybridity in connection with the monstrum-motif. Such axes show some of the main dynamics of Senecan poetics, and allow to shed light on the motivations and purposes of including this legendary character in a tragedy of the Neronian period.

Keywords

• Sêneca
• Hercules Furens
• Ambivalência
• Tragedia
• Poética.