The role of description in Senecan tragedy

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This study focuses on the descriptiveness of Senecan tragedy, a characteristic which sharply distinguishes it from the practice of classical Greek tragedy. While the Senecan descriptions can and have been explained in terms of the influence of rhetoric or as devices that compensate for the absence of performance, this book presents them as an integral aspect of a conception of tragedy which, sui generis , is quided distinct from classical Greek precedent. Senecan tragedy is, in fact, an amalgam of narrative and dramatic «modes», - a kind of «epic theatre» - the descriptions of which are to be seen as an imported narrative technique which affords Seneca the means to control his audience's «view» of the moral meaning of the plays.