Morals and Villas in Seneca's Letters: Places to Dwell

by John Henderson

Overview

John Henderson focuses on three key Letters visiting three Roman villas, and reveals their meaning as designs for contrasting lives. Seneca brings the philosophical epistle to Latin literature, creating models for moralizing which feature self-criticism, parody, and animated revision of myth. The Stoic moralist wrests writing away from Greek gurus and texts, and recasts it into critical thinking in Latin terms, within a Roman context. The Letters embody critical thinking on metaphor and translation, self-transformation and cultural tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521036221
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2007
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

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).

Table of Contents

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.