The Psychology of Uncertainty in Senecan Tragedy

Since the publication of Regenbogen's influential monograph, Schmerz und Tod in den Tragodien Senecas} it has been recognized that the emphatic depiction of emotion, which distinguishes Senecan tragedy from Greek tragedy of the Classical period, is vitally connected with Seneca's Stoic world-view. Several studies have shown that the passionate characters of Senecan tragedy, in whom the absence of ratio or reason constitutes vice according to the Stoic view,2 act as cautionary exempla for the instructive warning of their audience.3 Little attention, however, has been given to two aspects of Seneca's Affekldramen: firstly, their conspicuous emphasis on uncertainty; secondly, the formal methods by which the psychological dimension of Senecan characters is rendered exemplary. In what follows, I wish to address these two aspects by examining the psychology of uncertainty in conjunction with the formal means of its depiction through description. By means of frequent and lengthy descriptions placed in the mouths of his characters, Seneca gives psychology—the portrayal of states of mind and emotion—an emphasis and importance in his tragedies which it does not have in those of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.4 As a result of the