The Sublime Seneca

The Sublime Seneca

Author: Erik Gunderson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-01-26

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1107090016

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Introduction -- Misreading Seneca -- Writing metaphysics -- The nature of Seneca -- The spectacle of ethics -- Losing Seneca -- The analytics of desire -- The last monster -- Conclusion: the metaphysics of Senecan morals -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.


Book Synopsis The Sublime Seneca by : Erik Gunderson

Download or read book The Sublime Seneca written by Erik Gunderson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Misreading Seneca -- Writing metaphysics -- The nature of Seneca -- The spectacle of ethics -- Losing Seneca -- The analytics of desire -- The last monster -- Conclusion: the metaphysics of Senecan morals -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.


The Sublime Seneca

The Sublime Seneca

Author: Erik Gunderson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-01-26

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1316240975

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is an extended meditation on ethics in literature across the Senecan corpus. There are two chapters on the Moral Letters, asking how one is to read philosophy or how one can write about being. Moving from the Letters to the Natural Questions and Dialogues, Professor Gunderson explores how authorship works at the level both of the work and of the world, the ethics of seeing, and the question of how one can give up on the here and now and behold instead some other, better ethical sphere. Seneca's tragedies offer words of caution: desire might well subvert reason at its most profound level (Phaedra), or humanity's painful separation from the sublime might be part of some cruel divine plan (The Madness of Hercules). The book concludes by considering what, if anything, we are to make of Seneca's efforts to enlighten us.


Book Synopsis The Sublime Seneca by : Erik Gunderson

Download or read book The Sublime Seneca written by Erik Gunderson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an extended meditation on ethics in literature across the Senecan corpus. There are two chapters on the Moral Letters, asking how one is to read philosophy or how one can write about being. Moving from the Letters to the Natural Questions and Dialogues, Professor Gunderson explores how authorship works at the level both of the work and of the world, the ethics of seeing, and the question of how one can give up on the here and now and behold instead some other, better ethical sphere. Seneca's tragedies offer words of caution: desire might well subvert reason at its most profound level (Phaedra), or humanity's painful separation from the sublime might be part of some cruel divine plan (The Madness of Hercules). The book concludes by considering what, if anything, we are to make of Seneca's efforts to enlighten us.


Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy

Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy

Author: Gregory A. Staley

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2010-01-14

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0195387430

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The question of why Seneca wrote tragedy has been debated since at least the 13th century. Since Seneca was a Stoic, critics assumed he wrote with the standard Stoic theory of literature as education in philosophy in mind. This book argues that Seneca was influenced by Aristotle's famous defense of tragedy against Plato's critique.


Book Synopsis Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy by : Gregory A. Staley

Download or read book Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy written by Gregory A. Staley and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of why Seneca wrote tragedy has been debated since at least the 13th century. Since Seneca was a Stoic, critics assumed he wrote with the standard Stoic theory of literature as education in philosophy in mind. This book argues that Seneca was influenced by Aristotle's famous defense of tragedy against Plato's critique.


Brill's Companion to Seneca

Brill's Companion to Seneca

Author: Andreas Heil

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-03-20

Total Pages: 895

ISBN-13: 9004217088

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This new and important introduction to Seneca provides a systematic and concise presentation of this author’s philosophical works and his tragedies. It provides handbook style surveys of each genuine or attributed work, giving dates and brief descriptions, and taking into account the most important philosophical and philological issues. In addition, they provide accounts of the major steps in the history of their later influence. The cultural background of the texts and the most important problem areas within the philosophic and tragic corpus of Seneca are dealt with in separate essays.


Book Synopsis Brill's Companion to Seneca by : Andreas Heil

Download or read book Brill's Companion to Seneca written by Andreas Heil and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-03-20 with total page 895 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new and important introduction to Seneca provides a systematic and concise presentation of this author’s philosophical works and his tragedies. It provides handbook style surveys of each genuine or attributed work, giving dates and brief descriptions, and taking into account the most important philosophical and philological issues. In addition, they provide accounts of the major steps in the history of their later influence. The cultural background of the texts and the most important problem areas within the philosophic and tragic corpus of Seneca are dealt with in separate essays.


Seneca's Affective Cosmos

Seneca's Affective Cosmos

Author: Chiara Graf

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-05-07

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0198907028

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What is the role of emotion in the scientific, philosophical, and literary works of Seneca the Younger? Scholarship on Seneca has often historically treated emotion as an obstacle to moral progress in his thought--an inherently treacherous aspect of human experience which must be eradicated via reason. However, a growing body of scholarly work has come to recognize that Seneca made room for emotions in his philosophy, framing such sensations as fear and shame as ethically beneficial in certain circumstances. Seneca's Affective Cosmos: Subjectivity, Feeling, and Knowledge in the Natural Questions and Beyond extends such arguments to arrive at a surprising conclusion: Seneca is prepared to harness towards therapeutic and didactic ends even the extreme and misguided emotions that result from our flawed understanding of the universe. Affect plays a particularly important role for the Senecan proficiens, the morally and intellectually imperfect student of Stoicism. Whereas the idealized figure of the Senecan wise man can achieve ethical progress through reason alone, the proficiens' compromised understanding of the world often prevents him from doing so. When reason fails him, the Senecan proficiens can harness his emotions towards moral progress. For instance, in Seneca's meteorological treatise Natural Questions, stupefaction and anxiety are presented as paradoxical sources of courage in the face of death. Similarly, in the tragedy Trojan Women, grief and hopelessness provide the protagonist Andromache with unexpected solace. Chiara Graf reaches these conclusions by placing a variety of Senecan texts in dialogue with modern works on affect theory, a school of thought that has gained popularity in the Humanities but remains underexplored in the Classics.


Book Synopsis Seneca's Affective Cosmos by : Chiara Graf

Download or read book Seneca's Affective Cosmos written by Chiara Graf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of emotion in the scientific, philosophical, and literary works of Seneca the Younger? Scholarship on Seneca has often historically treated emotion as an obstacle to moral progress in his thought--an inherently treacherous aspect of human experience which must be eradicated via reason. However, a growing body of scholarly work has come to recognize that Seneca made room for emotions in his philosophy, framing such sensations as fear and shame as ethically beneficial in certain circumstances. Seneca's Affective Cosmos: Subjectivity, Feeling, and Knowledge in the Natural Questions and Beyond extends such arguments to arrive at a surprising conclusion: Seneca is prepared to harness towards therapeutic and didactic ends even the extreme and misguided emotions that result from our flawed understanding of the universe. Affect plays a particularly important role for the Senecan proficiens, the morally and intellectually imperfect student of Stoicism. Whereas the idealized figure of the Senecan wise man can achieve ethical progress through reason alone, the proficiens' compromised understanding of the world often prevents him from doing so. When reason fails him, the Senecan proficiens can harness his emotions towards moral progress. For instance, in Seneca's meteorological treatise Natural Questions, stupefaction and anxiety are presented as paradoxical sources of courage in the face of death. Similarly, in the tragedy Trojan Women, grief and hopelessness provide the protagonist Andromache with unexpected solace. Chiara Graf reaches these conclusions by placing a variety of Senecan texts in dialogue with modern works on affect theory, a school of thought that has gained popularity in the Humanities but remains underexplored in the Classics.


Seneca Hercules

Seneca Hercules

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-07-06

Total Pages: 806

ISBN-13: 0192889680

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Hercules is a tragedy of great theatrical, poetic, and cultural value. Written probably at the intersection of the principates of Claudius and Nero, it addresses central issues of early imperial Rome, even as it speaks profoundly to our times. Among its concerns are violence and madness; imperatives of family and self; Rome, identity and place; the nature of virtue; the longing for immortality; the theatre of rage; and the empire of death. The play is dramatically innovative, spectacular, and arresting: from its fiery, monumental god-prologue (the only one in Senecan tragedy), through meditative soliloquies, impassioned speeches, trenchant dialogue, a failed wooing scene with an impressive after-life in Tudor drama, a stunning entrance for Hercules and his captured hellhound, Theseus' ecphrastic narrative of the hero's infernal 'labour', to a familicidal madness scene and an emotionally turbulent, non-violent finale, in which the instinct for self-punitive suicide is thwarted by the claims of kinship and the acceptance of intolerable suffering. The whole is bound together by some of Seneca's most affective choral lyrics, as intellectually engaging as they are emotionally potent. Hercules is A. J. Boyle's sixth, full-scale edition for OUP of a play by or attributed to Seneca. It offers a comprehensive introduction, newly edited Latin text, English verse translation designed for both performance and academic study, and a detailed exegetic, analytic, and interpretative commentary. The aim has been to elucidate the text dramatically as well as philologically, and to locate the play firmly in its contemporary historical and theatrical context and the ensuing literary and dramatic tradition. As such, its substantial influence on European drama from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries is given emphasis throughout; this and the accessibility of the commentary to Latinless readers make the edition particularly useful to scholars and students not only of classics, but also of comparative literature and drama, and to anyone interested in the cultural dynamics of literary reception and the interplay between theatre and history.


Book Synopsis Seneca Hercules by :

Download or read book Seneca Hercules written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-06 with total page 806 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hercules is a tragedy of great theatrical, poetic, and cultural value. Written probably at the intersection of the principates of Claudius and Nero, it addresses central issues of early imperial Rome, even as it speaks profoundly to our times. Among its concerns are violence and madness; imperatives of family and self; Rome, identity and place; the nature of virtue; the longing for immortality; the theatre of rage; and the empire of death. The play is dramatically innovative, spectacular, and arresting: from its fiery, monumental god-prologue (the only one in Senecan tragedy), through meditative soliloquies, impassioned speeches, trenchant dialogue, a failed wooing scene with an impressive after-life in Tudor drama, a stunning entrance for Hercules and his captured hellhound, Theseus' ecphrastic narrative of the hero's infernal 'labour', to a familicidal madness scene and an emotionally turbulent, non-violent finale, in which the instinct for self-punitive suicide is thwarted by the claims of kinship and the acceptance of intolerable suffering. The whole is bound together by some of Seneca's most affective choral lyrics, as intellectually engaging as they are emotionally potent. Hercules is A. J. Boyle's sixth, full-scale edition for OUP of a play by or attributed to Seneca. It offers a comprehensive introduction, newly edited Latin text, English verse translation designed for both performance and academic study, and a detailed exegetic, analytic, and interpretative commentary. The aim has been to elucidate the text dramatically as well as philologically, and to locate the play firmly in its contemporary historical and theatrical context and the ensuing literary and dramatic tradition. As such, its substantial influence on European drama from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries is given emphasis throughout; this and the accessibility of the commentary to Latinless readers make the edition particularly useful to scholars and students not only of classics, but also of comparative literature and drama, and to anyone interested in the cultural dynamics of literary reception and the interplay between theatre and history.


Seneca

Seneca

Author: Margaret Graver

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-03-31

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1107164044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In-depth studies of Seneca's relation to Greek philosophy, his analysis of the emotions, and his project as a literary author.


Book Synopsis Seneca by : Margaret Graver

Download or read book Seneca written by Margaret Graver and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-31 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In-depth studies of Seneca's relation to Greek philosophy, his analysis of the emotions, and his project as a literary author.


Horace and Seneca

Horace and Seneca

Author: Martin Stöckinger

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-12-04

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 3110528614

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume sets out to explore the complex relationship between Horace and Seneca. It is the first book that examines the interface between these different and yet highly comparable authors with consideration of their œuvres in their entirety. The fourteen chapters collected here explore a wide range of topics clustered around the following four themes: the combination of literature and philosophy; the ways in which Seneca’s choral odes rework Horatian material and move beyond it; the treatment of ethical, poetic, and aesthetic questions by the two authors; and the problem of literary influence and reception as well as ancient and modern reflections on these problems. While the intertextual contacts between Horace and Seneca themselves lie at the core of this project, it also considers the earlier texts that serve as sources for both authors, intermediary steps in Roman literature, and later texts where connections between the two philosopher-poets are drawn. Although not as obviously palpable as the linkage between authors who share a common generic tradition, this uneven but pervasive relationship can be regarded as one of the most prolific literary interactions between the early Augustan and the Neronian periods. A bidirectional list of correspondences between Horace and Seneca concludes the volume.


Book Synopsis Horace and Seneca by : Martin Stöckinger

Download or read book Horace and Seneca written by Martin Stöckinger and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sets out to explore the complex relationship between Horace and Seneca. It is the first book that examines the interface between these different and yet highly comparable authors with consideration of their œuvres in their entirety. The fourteen chapters collected here explore a wide range of topics clustered around the following four themes: the combination of literature and philosophy; the ways in which Seneca’s choral odes rework Horatian material and move beyond it; the treatment of ethical, poetic, and aesthetic questions by the two authors; and the problem of literary influence and reception as well as ancient and modern reflections on these problems. While the intertextual contacts between Horace and Seneca themselves lie at the core of this project, it also considers the earlier texts that serve as sources for both authors, intermediary steps in Roman literature, and later texts where connections between the two philosopher-poets are drawn. Although not as obviously palpable as the linkage between authors who share a common generic tradition, this uneven but pervasive relationship can be regarded as one of the most prolific literary interactions between the early Augustan and the Neronian periods. A bidirectional list of correspondences between Horace and Seneca concludes the volume.


Flattery in Seneca the Younger

Flattery in Seneca the Younger

Author: Martina Russo

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-04-22

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 0192672932

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Flattery in Seneca the Younger explores the discourse of flattery in Seneca's philosophical texts, and analyses the extent to which Seneca developed a theory of adulation. Martina Russo maps a phenomenology of flattery, tracing its external manifestations in Senecan philosophy. The personal practice of flattery displayed in the Ad Polybium and in De clementia along with the 'distant' exempla of flattery represented by Seneca, and with the theorization of adulation, indicates the range and the complexity of strategic flattery during the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Furthermore, it is argued that Seneca emerges not only as a practitioner of flattery but also as a theorist of it. While many writers tarnished their reputation by giving in to flattery, Seneca was among the few who not only accepted flattery but also advocated it as an essential tool in his own times. Nevertheless, in Seneca's philosophical prose, a constant tension emerges: whereas flattery is 'politically' acceptable as an instrument to cope with the absolute power embraced by the princeps, the sapiens (wise) and the proficiens (would-be wise) should be careful because flattery can seriously compromise their path to wisdom. By analysing the theory and practice of flattery, Russo discusses how passages permeated with the most blatant flattery can be read on a new level, by viewing Seneca's philosophical prose as an extended exercise in symbolic projection and figured speech. It becomes possible to disclose traces of political criticism behind the fa?ade of the most flagrant flattery.


Book Synopsis Flattery in Seneca the Younger by : Martina Russo

Download or read book Flattery in Seneca the Younger written by Martina Russo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-22 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flattery in Seneca the Younger explores the discourse of flattery in Seneca's philosophical texts, and analyses the extent to which Seneca developed a theory of adulation. Martina Russo maps a phenomenology of flattery, tracing its external manifestations in Senecan philosophy. The personal practice of flattery displayed in the Ad Polybium and in De clementia along with the 'distant' exempla of flattery represented by Seneca, and with the theorization of adulation, indicates the range and the complexity of strategic flattery during the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Furthermore, it is argued that Seneca emerges not only as a practitioner of flattery but also as a theorist of it. While many writers tarnished their reputation by giving in to flattery, Seneca was among the few who not only accepted flattery but also advocated it as an essential tool in his own times. Nevertheless, in Seneca's philosophical prose, a constant tension emerges: whereas flattery is 'politically' acceptable as an instrument to cope with the absolute power embraced by the princeps, the sapiens (wise) and the proficiens (would-be wise) should be careful because flattery can seriously compromise their path to wisdom. By analysing the theory and practice of flattery, Russo discusses how passages permeated with the most blatant flattery can be read on a new level, by viewing Seneca's philosophical prose as an extended exercise in symbolic projection and figured speech. It becomes possible to disclose traces of political criticism behind the fa?ade of the most flagrant flattery.


Seneca's Characters

Seneca's Characters

Author: Erica M. Bexley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-07-07

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1108801773

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Seneca's Characters addresses one of the most enduring and least theorised elements of literature: fictional character and its relationship to actual, human selfhood. Where does the boundary between character and person lie? While the characters we encounter in texts are obviously not 'real' people, they still possess person-like qualities that stimulate our attention and engagement. How is this relationship formulated in contexts of theatrical performance, where characters are set in motion by actual people, actual bodies and voices? This book addresses such questions by focusing on issues of coherence, imitation, appearance and autonomous action. It argues for the plays' sophisticated treatment of character, their acknowledgement of its purely fictional ontology alongside deep – and often dark – appreciation of its quasi-human qualities. Seneca's Characters offers a fresh perspective on the playwright's powerful tragic aesthetics that will stimulate scholars and students alike.


Book Synopsis Seneca's Characters by : Erica M. Bexley

Download or read book Seneca's Characters written by Erica M. Bexley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seneca's Characters addresses one of the most enduring and least theorised elements of literature: fictional character and its relationship to actual, human selfhood. Where does the boundary between character and person lie? While the characters we encounter in texts are obviously not 'real' people, they still possess person-like qualities that stimulate our attention and engagement. How is this relationship formulated in contexts of theatrical performance, where characters are set in motion by actual people, actual bodies and voices? This book addresses such questions by focusing on issues of coherence, imitation, appearance and autonomous action. It argues for the plays' sophisticated treatment of character, their acknowledgement of its purely fictional ontology alongside deep – and often dark – appreciation of its quasi-human qualities. Seneca's Characters offers a fresh perspective on the playwright's powerful tragic aesthetics that will stimulate scholars and students alike.