Sublime and Sublimation: Eros and Thanatos in Seneca’s Phaedra

Abstract

Lines 604 ff. of Seneca’s Phaedra (uos testor omnis, caelites, hoc quod uolo / me nolle), while representing a kind of aporia for the constitution of the text, may be a gateway to the recognition not only of an important philosophical theme (on free will), but also and above all of an extraordinary poetic vision, capable of penetrating the psychic dynamics of amorous passion in the unstable balance between guilt and innocence, between Eros and Thanatos. Starting from this textual crux, this paper analyses the process of sublimation of the protagonist’s eros and the sublime as a poetic category describing an emotional excursion from a somewhat common existential state to a higher one.