The sublime Seneca : ethics, literature, metaphysics

240 Pages·2015·1.63 MB·English

by  Gunderson

THE SUBLIME SENECA
This is an extended meditation on ethics and literature across the
Senecancorpus.There are twochapters onthe MoralLetters,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 pro-
found 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
aretomakeofSeneca’seffortstoenlightenus.
erik gunderson is Professor of Classics at the University of
Toronto. He is the author of four other scholarly monographs:
Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy (2015); Nox Philologiae:
Aulus Gellius and the Fantasy of the Ancient Library (2009);
Declamation, Paternity and Roman Identity: Authority and the
Rhetorical Self (2003); and Staging Masculinity: The Rhetoric of
PerformanceintheRomanWorld(2000).HeisalsotheeditorofThe
Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric (2009). His work spans
languages,genres,anderas,andheconsistentlybringstobearmodern
criticalperspectiveswhenexploringtheancientworld.

THE SUBLIME SENECA
Ethics, literature, metaphysics
by
ERIK GUNDERSON
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-09001-9
1. Seneca,LuciusAnnaeus,approximately4b.c.–65a.d.Epistulaemoralesad
Lucilium. I. Title.
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2014032239
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V
both beautiful and sublime

Contents
Introduction 1
1 MisreadingSeneca 14
2 Writingmetaphysics 37
3 ThenatureofSeneca 56
4 Thespectacleofethics 74
5 LosingSeneca 88
6 Theanalyticsofdesire 105
7 Thelastmonster 127
Conclusion:ThemetaphysicsofSenecanmorals 148
Notes 158
Bibliography 209
Index 221
vii