Morals and Villas in Seneca's Letters

Places to Dwell
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-521-82944-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 448 g

John Henderson explores three letters of Seneca describing visits to Roman villas, and surveys the whole collection to show how these villas work as designs for contrasting lives. Seneca's own place is ageing drastically; a recent Epicurean's paradise is a seductive oasis away from the dangers of Nero's Rome; once a fortress of the dour Rome of yesteryear, the legendary Scipio's lair was now a shrine to the old morality: Seneca revels in its primitive bath-house, dark and cramped, before exploring the garden with the present owner. Seneca brings the philosophical epistle to Latin literature, creating models for moralizing which feature self-criticism, parody and re-animated myth. Virgil and Horace come in for rough handling, as the Latin moralist wrests ethical practice and writing away from Greek gurus and texts, and into critical thinking within a Roman context. Here is powerful teaching on metaphor and translation, on self-transformation and cultural tradition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Henderson, John

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Lateinische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Antike Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Twelve steps to haven; 2. Dropping in (it) at SENECA'S; 3. You can get used to anything; 4. The long and winding mode; 5. Booking us in; 6. Now and then; here and there: at SCIPIO'S; 7. Bound for VATIA'S; 8. Knocking the self: genuflexion, villafication, VATIA'S; 9. The world of the bath-house: SCIPIO'S; 10. The appliance of science: SCIPIO'S; 11. Shafts of light: transplantation and transfiguration; 12. Still olive, still SCIPIO'S; Appendices; Bibliography; Indexes.

Über Autor(innen)

Henderson, John
John Henderson is Reader in Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of King's College. His recent books include: Pliny's Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture & Classical Art (2002), Telling Tales on Caesar: Roman Stories from Phaedrus (2001), Writing down Rome: Comedy, Satire, and Other Offences (1999), and Fighting for Rome: Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War (1998). Aesop's Human Zoo: Roman Stories About Our Bodies, and HORTVS: The Roman Gardening Book, are both forthcoming (2004).