VERBA ALITER INSTRVCTA: SENECAN POETICS

Abstract

Seneca recognizes the power of poetry. In his prose works, he discusses how poetry adds punch to moral sententiae, and he peppers his letters and dialogues with lines from Virgil, Ovid, and others. Seneca is there typically concerned with ethical matters and so seldom has much to say about poetics specifically. But, in a fragment preserved by Gellius (12.2.2-13), he faults Ennius as old-fashioned, and elsewhere writes that it is best to be alive and writing now (i.e. the first century CE) because of the many great works of literature one can draw upon: ‘one discovers words already prepared, which, when positioned differently, create a new form.’ The predilection for novelty is not blind to tradition, though poetry is a resource that requires careful handling: poets compose lines worthy of philosophers (Ep. 8.8, Nat. 4a.pr.19), but sometimes their words can be dangerous, arousing our passions (Ep. 115.12), our fears (Dial. 6.19.4), or even propagating misinformation (Dial. 7.26.6).