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1 results

  • Chapter 3 - Appearance

  • Erica M. Bexley, University of Durham
  • Book:
    Seneca's Characters
    Published online:
    23 June 2022
    Print publication:
    07 July 2022, pp 181-262
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  • Summary

    Chapter 3 charts the prevalence of physical description in Senecan tragedy, arguing that this is not a symptom of Rezitationsdrama, but a consequence of Seneca’s interest in physiognomy and pathogonomy, both of which use bodily signals to evaluate the quality of people’s internal psychological / emotional / mental states. Like coherence and exemplarity, physiognomic analysis unites the quasi-personal and purely fictional elements of character, on the one hand by encouraging audiences to infer a psychology behind characters’ surfaces, and on the other by focusing attention on textual signs and symbols. This chapter discusses the confluence of bodily and mental states in Seneca’s Phaedra and Oedipus.