The Interplay Between Aeschylus and Seneca in James Thomson's Agamemnon

This paper analyses James Thomson's 1738 adaptation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Critics have mainly been interested in Thomson's projection of the contemporary political scenario onto the ancient myth of Agamemnon, focussing on the reworking of the plot and characterization. This paper explores Thomson's interaction with his ancient source in more philological terms, considering the author's access to the Aeschylean text by means of Thomas Stanley's 1663 Latin translation of all extant Aeschylean tragedies. In the process of adapting Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Thomson draws not only upon the Greek playwright - mainly via Stanley's Latin translation and at times engaging directly with the original text - but is equally indebted to Seneca's version of the play, sometimes via its translation by John Studley, and Pierre Brumoy's digests of Aeschylean and Senecan plays. In some passages of the play, the coalescence of all these sources leads to a multi-layered language: this creative interplay demands new ways to describe operations that defy the usual overarching categories of adaptation or translation processes.