B005601 - LATIN LITERATURE

Italian

Close reading in the original language of Latin texts, chosen coherently with the established monographic course (close reading of Seneca's Thyestes), also in relation to the Greek tradition, addressing literary, ideological and historical-cultural issues. Philological analysis, also in seminar form, of exegetical and text-critical problems.

The Thyestes by Seneca in the critical edition by O. Zwierlein, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae. Incertorum auctorum Hercules [Oetaeus], Octavia, Oxonii 1986.

Recommended Commentary:
R. Tarrant, Seneca. Thyestes, Scholars Press, Atlanta 1985.

Other commentaries:
A.J. Boyle, Thyestes, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York, 2017.

Compulsory readings:
A. Casamento, Il teatro di Seneca, in G. Petrone (a cura di), Storia del Teatro Latino, Carocci, Roma 2016, pp. 282-337.

A. Schiesaro, The Passions in Play: Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003 (one chapter).

G. Mazzoli, Thyestes. Il cibo del potere, in Id. Il chaos e le sue architetture. Trenta studi su Seneca tragico, Palumbo, Palermo 2013, pp. 341-350.

Other suggested essays:
A. La Penna, Atreo e Tieste sulle scene romane (Il tiranno e l’atteggiamento verso il tiranno), in Id. Fra Teatro, Poesia e Politica Romana, Torino 1979, pp. 127-141.

P. Mantovanelli, La metafora del Tieste: Il nodo sadomasochistico nella tragedia senecana del potere tirannico, Edizioni universitarie, Libreria universitaria editrice, Verona 1984.

G. Picone, La fabula e il regno. Studi sul Thyestes di Seneca, Palumbo, Palermo 1984.

Recommended editions of the texts to be read independently by the students:

Orazio, L’esperienza delle cose. Epistole, libro 1, edited by Andrea Cucchiarelli, Marsilio, Venezia 2016 (cf. the commentary by Andrea Cucchiarelli, Orazio. Epistole, libro I, Edizioni della Normale, Pisa 2019).

Lucano. La guerra civile, edited by Renato Badalì, Utet, Milano 2015.

Apuleio, La favola di Amore e Psiche, edited by Alessandro Fo, Einaudi, Torino 2020 (cf. the commentary by M. Zimmerman, Apuleius Madaurensis. Metamorphoses, Book IV 28-35, V and VI 1-24. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary, Egbert Forsten, Groningen: 2004).

Properzio, Elegie, libro 1, edited by Paolo Fedeli, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla / Mondadori, Milano 2021 (cf. the commentary by Paolo Fedeli, Sesto Properzio. Il primo libro delle Elegie. Introduzione, testo critico e commento, Olschki, Firenze 1980).

Mastery of the techniques of philological and literary analysis of Latin texts. Interpretation of Latin texts in their historical context.

Good knowledge of Latin language, literature, prosody and metrics.

Lectures, including reading, translation and commentary on Latin texts. Student interventions are highly encouraged and seminar-style lectures may also be envisaged.

Oral examination, during which, through the translation and commentary of passages of the texts included in the examination program, both linguistic competence and the ability to place the texts in their historical and cultural context and in the literary traditions to which they are related or to which they give rise will be tested. Philological skills and metrical knowledge will also be tested.

Title: 'Perimat tyrannus lenis: in regno meo / mors impetratur. Seneca’s Thyestes. Reading and commentary'.

The Thyestes is the tragedy that perhaps most of all embodies the stylistic features that are traditionally associated with Seneca’s tragedy, a genre which - as is well known - is entrusted with the task of showing the vitia and passions that hinder moral perfection. The search for the horrific macabre, the 'blackness as a distinguishing mark', the virtuoso linguistic baroqueism are here used to present the famous saga of the descendants of Pelops and their unstoppable evil fury. The drift of autocratic power, narrated through the vicissitudes of the Pelopides, had found particular fortune in Rome, beginning with Accius’ Atreus and continuing with Varius’ Thyestes and, after Seneca, with Curiatius Maternus’ Thyestes. If already for both of these works it is possible to think of a line of interpretation in a political key (in the case of Varius, for instance, the ruthless fratricidal struggle between Atreus and Tereus, on Octavian’s return to Rome in 29 BC, would have made one reflect on civil wars), even for Seneca’s Thyestes, the aesthetics of absolute wickedness that pervades the tragedy, and the constant insistence on the perverse attitudes of the tyrant, may suggest a critique of power that does not, however, need to find a specific historical reference, but should perhaps be understood as an ideological warning for anyone aspiring to power.
During the course, the metrics of Seneca’s Thyestes and its manuscript transmission will be illustrated. We will then proceed with the reading of Seneca's tragedy, with particular attention to the exegetical-philological, linguistic and thematic analysis of the work, which will require an inevitable and constant comparison with Seneca’s remaining tragic and philosophical output. While the study of the literary models (both Greek and Latin) will be fundamental, a special look will be taken at the Accian tragedy and its surviving fragments.

In addition to the topics and passages of Latin authors covered in class, the syllabus includes the reading of the following texts in the original language:

Horace, Letters, book 1.

Lucan, Bellum civile, book 6.

Apuleius, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche.

Propertius, Elegies, book 1.

Quality education.