Roman/Greek -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 21:54:50 03/27/08 Thu
Author: Katelyn R.
Subject: Roman/Greek

I was reading an article for my Roman Civ. class and came across the following sentence:
�Indeed, imitation was considered as obedience to the laws of literature rather than as a violation of them� (Cleasby � The Medea of Seneca).
This got me thinking about how much the Roman writers tried to imitate Greek writers. Especially in drama the playwright would take one or more Greek plays and simply Romanize them. They would also try and mimic the writing style. At the basis it they seem to just be trying to copy the structural techniques but why? The only clear reason would be that they wanted the same success as who they were modeling their plays/works after. I know I�m kind of just stating the obvious here but while reading the article the thought came to mind. I also find it interesting since the Romans and Greeks had different types of audiences (the Romans usually having previous knowledge of the story). So they (playwrights/authors) modeled themselves after the popular Greek playwrights/authors but had to please the Roman people in doing so.

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Replies:

Re: Roman/Greek -- Jonathan Dunn, 10:27:01 04/06/08 Sun