The stylus and the scalpel : theory and practice of metaphors in Seneca's prose / Tommaso Gazzarri.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Gazzarri, Tommaso, author.

Series:

Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes

Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes ; 91

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphor.

Stoics.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D--Criticism and interpretation.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XVII, 266 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany ; Boston, Massachusetts : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Seneca’s developed metaphors draw on what is known to describe the unknown. They put hard ethical in highly accessible, and often quite entertaining, terms. The present book provides a functional description of Seneca’s dialectical relation between metaphorical language and philosophy. It shows how Stoic philosophy finds a new means of expression in Seneca’s highly elaborated rhetorical discourse, and how this relates to the social and cultural demands of Neronian culture. Metaphors are purposely utilized to work "collectively" rather than by category or type and that, therefore, the analysis of what metaphors do when Seneca chooses to combine them in clusters, demonstrates the existence of a "metanarrative of rhetoric". This approach is fundamentally innovative and has the advantage of gauging the functioning of Senecan style as a whole, rather than focusing on single features of its rhetorical functioning. The main target is to show how philosophical preaching materially contributes to the healing of human soul because it shapes the individual’s cognitive faculty in a way that is physical and not simply figurative. The stylus and the scalpel blend in their functions. This kind of therapy is not just the simulacrum of a more "real" one, it is in itself medical in nature.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

Abbreviations

Note on Translations

Introduction

1 Metasemes and the Classical Tradition

2 Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System

3 Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress

4 From Metaphor to Metaphors

5 Metaphorical Physiology

6 A Breathing Body

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index Rerum

Index Locorum

Notes:

Dissertation Yale University.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9783110673715

3110673711

OCLC:

1198931499