Don’t Stand So Close to Me: Antigone’s Pietas in Seneca’s Phoenissae

summary:

Seneca’s Phoenissae imbues Antigone’s canonical pietas with elegiac associations. Her appeals to her father recycle familiar topoi from amatory poetry, especially the amator’s pledge to follow (sequor) the beloved anywhere. Her father, in turn, is often disturbed by her physical proximity and attempts to escape further incestuous temptation (timeo post matrem omnia). In the end, however, Oedipus capitulates to his daughter’s elegiac rhetoric and responds to her in similarly amatory terms. In this way Seneca subverts the loyalty that defined Antigone in prior literary treatments to create the potential for an incestuous sequel to his earlier tragedy of Thebes.