References in Art
Fifteen centuries after her time, Poppaea was depicted in Claudio Monteverdi's last opera L'incoronazione di Poppea (The coronation of Poppaea) of 1642. Her story was clearly chosen to appeal to the titillation favored in the nascent culture of the Venetian public opera theaters, and its Prologue immediately explains that it is not a drama that promotes the triumph of virtue. Poppaea is portrayed as cynically plotting to become empress of Rome by manipulating the emperor Nero into marrying her, and her machinations even include the execution of Seneca the Younger, who opposes her plans, which are successful at the end of the drama. Her expressions of love for Nero are effusive, but completely insincere.
The Gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy wrote a song titled 'Poppæa', inspired by her story on their myth-based album Aégis.
Read more about this topic: Poppaea Sabina
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“The classicist, and the naturalist who has much in common with him, refuse to see in the highest works of art anything but the exercise of judgement, sensibility, and skill. The romanticist cannot be satisfied with such a normal standard; for him art is essentially irrational—an experience beyond normality, sometimes destructive of normality, and at the very least evocative of that state of wonder which is the state of mind induced by the immediately inexplicable.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)