Philosophy and Tragedy: The Case of Hercules on Oeta, a Play Ascribed to Seneca

Abstract

In the play Hercules on Oeta (Hercules Oetaeus), which is a dramatic representation of the story about Hercules and Deianeira, evident lines of stoic philosophy can be traced. The easiest recognisable indication of it is the emphasized dramatic position of the Hercules’s apotheosis. Thus, this drama gains explicit metaphysical and cosmic character. Despite the fact that this philosophic point is more emphasized than in the Sophocles’s tragedy Trachiniae, which was undoubtedly the main literary example of the drama, the psychological insights, linked especially with Deianeira’s reaction to the Iole’s arrival, should not be neglected. Here we witness a real labyrinth of emotions coming to light in long monologs and tense dialogs, which present complex Deianeira’s inner world. In tough existential condition, she decided for fatal deed, thus inflicting on Hercules the mortal wound. However, it is not only her husband who is dying, but also, as she states herself, the saviour and defender of the world. Binding in himself together the individual and the cosmic in full accordance with stoic thought, character of Hercules exceeds the limits of human individuality. His last and most difficult labour is confrontation with his own death. This is the last challenge of his heroism, challenge, which ultimately grants him the apotheosis he longed for arduously.