During the Renaissance, the idea of the tragic was drawn from the plays of Seneca rather than the Greek tragedies. This is particularly true when playwrights find themselves in tune with Seneca's mentality. Indeed, we can better understand Seneca's tragedies when we examine the Renaissance dramas that used them as models. In this way, the phenomenon of reception works in both directions, illuminating the past and the present.
My method has been to examine two plays in which the authors linked material taken from Seneca with that borrowed from Sophocles. The first example analyzed is a French play by Robert Garnier, shown and published in 1580, whose title is Antigone ou la Piété ; the second example is a very popular English tragedy by John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee, called Œdipus, A Tragedy, which was shown in 1678 and published the following year. I demonstrated how Garnier derived his conception of the role of Antigone from Seneca's tragedies Œdipus and Les Phéniciennes. I have highlighted the elements of Seneca's play that attracted Garnier. In the case of Dryden and Lee'sŒdipus, I explained how the authors enlivened Sophocles' drama by inserting material borrowed from Seneca, in particular through the necromancy scene. It's curious that in their preface the authors criticize Seneca and also Corneille, when in fact they borrow important elements from both playwrights.
