Tragedy, Week 14: Essay Writing

Practicalities 3000 words +/- 10% = 2700 to 3300 words Your name and essay title References (footnotes/in-text citations) In-text: In a recent article, Russ Leo has argued that the treatment of recognition in Nicolas Barthélemy de Loches’ 1541 play Christus xilonicus “suggests a technical use, informed by an encounter with the Poetics” (Leo 506). Footnotes: In a recent article, Russ Leo has argued that the treatment of recognition in Nicolas Barthélemy de Loches’ 1541 play Christus xilonicus “suggests a technical use, informed by an encounter with the Poetics” Russ Leo, ‘Scripture and Tragedy in the Reformation’ in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, (Oxford: OUP, 2015). p.506. Bibliography

What are we looking for? (1) Solid, in-depth knowledge and understanding of the texts and ideas we have discussed on the course. Original thinking *** CLOSE READING *** Essays that answer the question

What are we looking for? (2) Engagement with secondary sources: “ Anthony Boyle has commented upon the appetitive nature of the warring brothers in Seneca’s Thyestes, stating that the images and motifs of “hunger, thirst, eating, drinking, feasting, filling, emptying, satiety, limit and unlimited,” prevalent throughout the tragedy, work to “index man as appetite, his essential status as beast” (Boyle 32). What Boyle does not do, however, is make a distinction that I believe to be central to an interpretation of the play’s political or ideological import, between the different types of appetite that pervade it, and the ways in which they play out.” Clear, coherent structure Lucid, academic English Good scholarly practice

Answering the question (1) 1. Work out exactly what you’re being asked. “A ( central motif ) of ( Greek and Roman representations of the tyrant ), therefore, is his representation as a ( figure of overpowering appetite or libido ). ”. How far does this apply to the protagonists in the tragedies we have studied ? Answer with reference to at least two plays. Greek and Roman authors very often present tyrants as figures driven by lusts and appetites they can’t resist. Command Words How far? Discuss. Do you agree? Evaluate. Compare.

Answering the question (2) Have a thesis and state it in your introduction: 1. Ancient Greek tragedy presents its audience with numerous types of anger: the wrath of the gods against mortals when they err or offend; the anger of humankind against irresistible Fate, or fellow human beings; the vengeful wrath of the Erinyes- but thumos, the rage of the insulted hero, seems to me to have made the greatest impression on imitators of Greek tragedy. I hope to show that Seneca contorts and concentrates thumos into passionate furor in Thyestes, stripping the social dimension of Greek anger to present his reader with a pressurised, inward passion that comes in places to be ecstatic. Born out of frenzy and senseless, compelling impulse, written and directed by creatures of furor, Senecan tragedy in its very existence embodies a giving-in to overwhelming, passionate anger.

Answering the question (2b) 2. Marlowe’s Edward II is never quite up to the task of embodying the furor that drives the Senecan tragic heroes upon whom he is, in part, modelled. The king uses distinctively Senecan language and imagery to describe his own anger; but his metaphors of cannibalism, images of awesome natural disaster, descriptions of swelling and growing, and assertions that he suffers from an irresistible, driving passion are everywhere exposed by his actions and decisions as performances, even parodies. In fact, I will argue, the king’s insufficiency, the distance between the force and violence of his language and his weak, fearful and always-reactive actions, is central to understanding Marlowe’s tragedy, which rests in the inability or unwillingness of complex, human and flawed characters to play the constraining roles assigned to them by the societies in which they live.

Answering the question (2) Answer the question in your introduction, conclusion and every paragraph you write. NO WAFFLE!

P.E.D Point: Though the play’s opening Act attests supernatural causes for the action of Thyestes, in the scenes that follow, Atreus directs and controls the play’s mortal characters entirely. Evidence: His revenge is carefully meditated; the offence that Thyestes committed against him is long in the past, and he must summon his (arguably unthreatening) brother from a distant exile in order to carry out his plans ( ). The seamlessness of his vengeance is continually emphasised; he characterises his brother as a “beast… tangled in the nets I laid” (491). The mode of his revenge is specifically literary as he deceives his brother by means of wordplay and insinuation ( , etc). Most importantly, he appeals to the Furies for the inspiration necessary to carry out his revenge: Let come the gang of ravening Furies, with violent Erinys, and Megaera, shaking fire in each hand. The rage that burns my heart needs to become more savage. I want to be filled with greater horror. ( ) Development: Atreus demands that the figures of the furia (Furies) fill him with the furor (rage) necessary both to enact his gruesome revenge, and drive forward the action of the tragedy. In this way, Seneca impresses that Atreus’s overpowering emotions are identical to the forces that create and compel tragic action; the king’s bid to be filled with violent anger is also a demand for furor poeticus, the divine possession and inspiration which Plato held to be necessary for poetic composition. Here, Seneca portrays Atreus metatheatrically: he is not just a figure of vengeful power, exerting his wrath upon the world around him, but in fact an omnipotent artist, creating the tragedy in which he appears. As Atreus himself asserts, observing his miserable brother: “…Yes! I am God! Highest of all the powers, / And king of kings! This is better than I dreamed of.” ( )