This dissertation comprises a study revealing the differences and similarities between late Roman and medieval Christian conceptions of tragedy and classical Greek ideas of tragedy. Representative of the Roman conception of tragedy is the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. As the legends of the martyrs and the teachings of the Fathers made their way into the Middle Ages, they brought with them the mixture of Greek, Roman, and Christian tragical motifs as well as an awareness of, and at times anxiety over, the similarity of pagan and Christian elements. Our failure to understand the Roman conception of tragedy has caused us to miss much in medieval literature that is tragical. To miss the Senecan content of Boethius, for instance, is to miss the Senecan element in medieval conceptions of tragedy. My analysis of the tragedies of Seneca, early and medieval Christian commentaries thereon, and the influence of this tradition on medieval works reveals a direct line of influence from Seneca's Latin plays, through the Consolatione de Philosophiae of Boethius, to de Meun, Boccaccio, and Geoffrey Chaucer. My study culminates in a comprehensive, detailed investigation of tragedy as it appears in various of the works of Chaucer. It is my contention that Chaucer recognized the similarity of the pagan and Christian traditions, and explored the significance of this correspondence in his writings. I find evidence, in his Monk's Tale, for example, of a fully-developed understanding of the nature of Senecan tragedy with its characteristic defiance, as well as its shortcomings in light of the Boethian-Platonic interpretation of tragedy which postulates all misfortune as a Good, i.e. a part of the workings of the inscrutable divine plan. The Chaucerian conception of tragedy, I conclude, is the philosophically and artistically inclusive playfulness by which he reveals the surprising similarities and crucial differences between classical and Christian viewpoints. Thus I attempt to reconnect the literatures and attitudes towards tragedy of these periods, by tracing continuities, literary patterns in which pleasure, transcendence, even comedy are merged with motifs that are generally considered tragical.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8972 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | Herold, Christine |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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