Synopses & Reviews
The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) made innovative use of the letter format to record both his moral philosophy and his personal experiences. In
Letters on Ethics, rich descriptions of city and country life in Nero’s Italy mix with discussions of Roman poetry and oratory and with personal advice to Seneca’s friend Lucilius. The first complete English translation of this work in nearly a century,
Letters on Ethics presents Seneca’s fascinating reflections on daily life, education, and philosophical thought at Rome and elucidates these topics for modern readers.
Written as much for a general audience as for Lucilius, these engaging letters offer advice on how to deal with everything from nosy neighbors to sickness, pain, and death. Above all, Seneca uses the relaxed form of the letter to introduce many major issues in Stoicism, for centuries the most influential philosophical system in the Mediterranean world. His lively and at times humorous explanations have made the Letters his most popular work and an enduring classic. Featuring an astute introduction and explanatory notes, this new edition by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long resituates the Letters on Ethics in the front ranks of world literature.
Review
Synopsis
Selected from the Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Seneca's Letters from a Stoic are a set of 'essays in disguise' from one of the most insightful philosophers of the Silver Age of Roman literature. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Latin with an introduction by Robin Campbell.
A philosophy that saw self-possession as the key to an existence lived 'in accordance with nature', Stoicism called for the restraint of animal instincts and the severing of emotional ties. These beliefs were formulated by the Athenian followers of Zeno in the fourth century BC, but it was in Seneca that the Stoics found their most eloquent advocate. Stoicism, as expressed in the Letters, helped ease pagan Rome's transition to Christianity, for it upholds upright ethical ideals and extols virtuous living, as well as expressing disgust for the harsh treatment of slaves and the inhumane slaughters witnessed in the Roman arenas. Seneca's major contribution to a seemingly unsympathetic creed was to transform it into a powerfully moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind.
Robin Campbell's lucid translation captures Seneca's humour and tautly aphoristic style. In his introduction, he discusses the tensions between Seneca's philosophy and his turbulent career as adviser to the tyrannical emperor Nero.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4BC - AD65) was born in Spain but was raised according to the traditional values of the republic of Rome. In AD48 he became tutor to the future emperor Nero and became his principal civil advisor when he took power. His death was eventually ordered by Nero in AD65, but Seneca anticipated the emperor's decree and committed suicide.
If you enjoyed Letters from a Stoic, you might like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, also available in Penguin Classics.
Synopsis
A new series of beautiful hardcover nonfiction classics, with covers designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith World-changing ideas meet eye-catching design: the best titles of the extraordinarily successful Great Ideas series are now packaged in Coralie Bickford-Smiths distinctive, award-winning covers. Whether on a well-curated shelf or in your back pocket, these timeless works of philosophical, political, and psychological thought are absolute musthaves for book collectors as well as design enthusiasts.
Synopsis
'I long to reach my home and see the day of my return. It is my never-failing wish' The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. Confronted by natural and supernatural threats - shipwrecks, battles, monsters and the implacable enmity of the sea-god Poseidon - Odysseus must test his bravery and native cunning to the full if he is to reach his homeland safely and overcome the obstacles that, even there, await him.
E. V. Rieu's translation of the Odyssey was the very first Penguin Classic to be published, and has itself achieved classic status. For this edition, Rieu's text has been revised, and a new introduction by Peter Jones complements the original introduction.
Synopsis
An elaborately annotated edition of Shakespeare's masterpieces of wit and erotic word-play.
When a volume of poetry entitled Shakespeares Sonnets. Never before Imprinted appeared in 1609, Shakespeare was forty-five and most of his greatest plays had seen several performances. Some of the sonnets, speaking of the begetting of children, mortality and memory, art, desire and jealousy, are addressed to a beloved youth; others are addressed to a treacherous mistress, a "dark lady." Appended to the sonnets is "A Lover's Complaint," a beautiful poem in rhyme-royal in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.
While Shakespeare's biographers continue their investigations, readers may find the "secret" of the sonnets in the poetry itself. In this spirit John Kerrigan provides an illuminating Introduction to the volume as a whole, together with 258 pages of commentaries on the poems, a textual history, and suggestions for further reading.
Edited with an Introduction by John Kerrigan.
Synopsis
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. This well-rounded selection of Abraham Lincoln's finest speeches combines the classic and obscure, the lyrical and historical, and the inspirational and intellectual to present a historical arc marking periods of the Civil War-crisis, outbreak, escalation, victory, and Reconstruction. Addressing the conflict's multiple aspects-the issue of slavery, state versus federal power, the meaning of the Constitution, civic duty, death, and freedom-this elegant keepsake collection will make a wonderful inspirational gift for professed Lincoln fans, Civil War buffs, and lovers of rhetorical genius.
Synopsis
In this volume we find Seneca at his best, and over the centuries countless readers have found his letters on ethics edifying. They range in subject from how to live a Stoic life and retain one's humanity in a cold, impersonal society to why slavery is wrong to the foibles of debauchery. Seneca makes his cases in a sensible, even witty, fashion, usually without a censorious tone. This may well prove the most important volume in the series.
About the Author
Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives.
He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer andndash; the Iliad and the Odyssey andndash; are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.
In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall travellerandrsquo;s tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope.
We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact andlsquo;Homerandrsquo; may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps andlsquo;the hostageandrsquo; or andlsquo;the blind oneandrsquo;. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand yearsandrsquo; time.
E. V. Rieu was a celebrated translator from Latin and Greek, and editor of Penguin Classics from 1944-1964. His son, D. C. H. Rieu has revised his work.
D. C. H. Rieu is the son of E. V. Rieu, celebrated translator from Latin and Greek and Editor of Penguin Classics from 1944-1964.
Peter Jones is former lecturer in classics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Table of Contents
Seneca and His World
Introduction to the Letters on Ethics
Letters on Ethics
1 Taking charge of your time
2 A beneficial reading program
3 Trusting one’s friends
4 Coming to terms with death
5 Our inward and outward lives
6 Intimacy within friendship
7 Avoiding the crowd
8 Writing as a form of service
9 Friendship and self-sufficiency
10 Communing with oneself
11 Blushing
12 Visiting a childhood home
13 Anxieties about the future
14 Safety in a dangerous world
15 Exercises for the body and the voice
16 Daily study and practice
17 Saving for retirement
18 The Saturnalia festival
19 The satisfactions of retirement
20 The importance of being consistent
21 How reading can make you famous
22 Giving up a career
23 Real joy is a serious matter
24 Courage in a threatening situation
25 Effective teaching
26 Growing old
27 Real joy depends on real study
28 Travel is no cure for depression
29 A disillusioned friend
30 An Epicurean on his deathbed
31 Our mind’s godlike potential
32 Steadiness of aim
33 The use of philosophical maxims
34 Willingness is the key
35 Learning to be a friend
36 Helping another maintain his commitment
37 Service to philosophy is true freedom
38 Fewer words achieve more
39 Healthy and unhealthy desires
40 Oratory and the philosopher
41 God dwells within us
42 Good people are rare
43 Being the subject of gossip
44 Noble birth
45 A gift of books
46 A book by Lucilius
47 How we treat our slaves
48 Tricks of logic
49 Remembering old times
50 Blindness to one’s own faults
51 The party town of Baiae
52 Good learners and good teachers
53 A bad experience at sea
54 A near-fatal asthma attack
55 Passing the home of a recluse
56 Noisy lodgings above a bathhouse
57 A dark tunnel
58 A conversation about Plato
59 Steadiness of joy
60 Our prayers are all amiss
61 Preparing for death
62 Living the inner life
63 Consolation for the death of a friend
64 Our predecessors in philosophy
65 Some analyses of causation
66 All goods are equal
67 All goods are choiceworthy
68 The uses of retirement
69 Combating one’s faults
70 Ending one’s own life
71 Life’s highest good
72 Finding time for study
73 Gratitude toward rulers
74 Only the honorable is good
75 What it means to make progress
76 Some proofs that only the honorable is good
77 Facing death with courage
78 Coping with bodily pain
79 A trip around Sicily brings thoughts of glory
80 A quiet day at home
81 Gratitude for benefits received
82 Syllogisms cannot make us brave
83 Heavy drinking
84 The writer’s craft
85 Some objections to Stoic ethics
86 The rustic villa of Scipio Africanus
87 Poverty and wealth
88 The liberal arts
89 The divisions of philosophy
90 The beginnings of civilization
91 A terrible fire at Lyon
92 What we need for happiness
93 A premature death
94 The role of precepts in philosophy
95 The role of general principles
96 Complaints
97 A trial in the time of Cicero
98 The power of the mind
99 Consolation for the death of a child
100 A book by Papirius Fabianus
101 A sudden death
102 Renown and immortality
103 Those we meet may be dangerous to us
104 Why travel cannot set you free
105 How to avoid being harmed by other people
106 The corporeal nature of the good
107 An unexpected misfortune
108 Vegetarianism and the use of literature
109 Mutual aid among the wise
110 False fears and mistaken ideas of wealth
111 What we lose with our tricks of logic
112 A difficult pupil
113 Is a virtue an animate creature?
114 A debased style of eloquence
115 Fine language will not help us
116 The Stoic view of emotion
117 Propositions and incorporeals
118 A proper definition for the human good
119 Natural wealth
120 How we develop our concept of the good
121 Self-awareness in animate creatures
122 The hours of day and night
123 Resisting external influences
124 The criterion for the human good
Fragments of other letters
Notes
Textual Notes
References
Index