Category:Nero--literature (subject)

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Nero (Home Page)

Works of literature related to Nero

<Fiction : Nero (art) -- Nero (music) -- Nero (cinema)>

Overview

In 1484 the editio princeps of the Latin play Octavia, attributed to Seneca, was published in Ferrara. Soon, also the stories by Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio became widely available in print.

Starting from the very beginning of the 17th century, numerous plays were performed, having Nero as their protagonist. These plays "gathered out of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, and Seneca," and focused on the court intrigues at the time of Nero, with no specific reference to Christian Origins. At the center was always the madness and cruelty of the Emperor, whom all ancient sources described as a ruthless tyrant.

In the 19th century a growing interest in Christian Origins let progressively to the merging of the classical narrative on Nero as a tyrant and his religious condemnation as a "persecutor of the Church." The result was the novel Quo Vadis?, one of most successful pieces of narrative of all times. The new religious emphasis overshadowed the "classical" narrative in popular culture and the persecution of the Christians became the central piece of evidence of the Emperor's madness.

Only in some recent novels there has been an effort to present a more balanced view of Nero and understand the reasons that guided his own actions.

@2017 Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan