The Cosmic Viewpoint. A Study of Seneca's Natural Questions.

WILLIAMS, G.D.,

ISBN 10: 0199731586 / ISBN 13: 9780199731589

Published by Oxford University Press, 2012

About this Item

Oxford University Press, Oxford (.), 2012. Original black hard bound with pictorial dust wrappers. Spine gilt titled. Nice copy. Appears unread. 'Seneca's Natural Questions has been dismissed as a dry meteorological work which fails to fulfil its promised integration of the physical and ethical components of Stoicism. W. addresses these criticisms and argues that Seneca has constructed a cohesive text which creates a philosophical holism tracing a progression towards understanding the cosmos, enabling the mind to find release from the restrictions of life. Expanding on studies of Seneca's artistry in the last twenty years, W. provides a comprehensive reading of the Natural Questions as he examines the fusion of the artistic and scientific which sets it apart from the conservative meteorological tradition. (.) Chapter 1 not only introduces the reader to Seneca's worldview but also reveals how W. works. He is a careful and judicious reader who examines Seneca within intellectual and cultural contexts. After this introductory chapter, W. focusses on recurring figures of aberrant behavious and the interlocutor. (.) Beginning with Chpater 3 W. devotes a chapter to each individual book of the Naturla Questions. (.) This volume is an important contribution to Senecan studies. W. has successfully provided a thoughtful and insightful reading of the Natural Questions. Translations following hte Latin passages make it accessible to those with little or no Latin. Attention to the artistic/scientific fusion raises the Natural Questions beyond a meteorological treatise. W. never evades or obscures what may be problematic. Although some of his readings may not convince, they are always well argued and provoke re-examination of the text.' (E.E. BATINSKI in The Classical Review (New Series), 2013, pp.442-444).

Seller Inventory # 63642

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Cosmic Viewpoint. A Study of Seneca's Natural Questions.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199731586
• ISBN 13: 9780199731589
• Binding: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis

Seneca's Natural Questions is an eight-book disquisition on the nature of meteorological phenomena, ranging inter alia from rainbows to earthquakes, from comets to the winds, from the causes of snow and hail to the reasons why the Nile floods in summer. Much of this material had been treated in the earlier Greco-Roman meteorological tradition, but what notoriously sets Seneca's writing apart is his insertion of extended moralizing sections within his technical discourse. How, if at all, are these outbursts against the luxury and vice that are apparently rampant in Seneca's first-century CE Rome to be reconciled with his main meteorological agenda?

In grappling with this familiar question, The Cosmic Viewpoint argues that Seneca is no blinkered or arid meteorological investigator, but a creative explorer into nature's workings who offers a highly idiosyncratic blend of physico-moral investigation across his eight books. At one level, his inquiry into nature impinges on human conduct and morality in its implicit propagation of the familiar Stoic ideal of living in accordance with nature: the moral deviants whom Seneca condemns in the course of the work offer egregious examples of living contrary to nature's balanced way. At a deeper level, however, The Cosmic Viewpoint stresses the literary qualities and complexities that are essential to Seneca's literary art of science: his technical enquiries initiate a form of engagement with nature which distances the reader from the ordinary involvements and fragmentations of everyday life, instead centering our existence in the cosmic whole. From a figurative standpoint, Seneca's meteorological theme raises our gaze from a terrestrial level of existence to a more intuitive plane where literal vision gives way to "higher" conjecture and intuition: in striving to understand meteorological phenomena, we progress in an elevating direction--a conceptual climb that renders the Natural Questions no mere store of technical learning, but a work that actively promotes a change of perspective in its readership.

About the Author

Gareth D. Williams is Violin Family Professor of Classics at Columbia University. His most recent book, co-edited with Katharina Volk, is Roman Reflections.