Search results for "Seneca"
showing 10 items of 99 documents
Due padri, due figli: modelli drammatici 'al maschile' nelle Troiane di seneca
2017
In Senecan Troades the female component plays a prominent role; nevertheless the tragedy stages, with an evident reduplication, two exemplary cases of male pairs consisting of a father and a son: Achilles and Pyrrhus on the one hand, Hector and Astyanax on the other. The papers deals with that, according to the idea that Seneca composes the drama by re-reading the myth in the light of a crucial aspect of Latin thought such as the inheritance of values and patterns of behavior that passes from father to son.
Per amore e per interesse. Moventi e modelli dell’azione benefica nella riflessione antica
2021
Classical thinkers described sometimes the donor’s move employing some unexpected analogies: Aristotle explains the “benefactor’s love” comparing it to the artist’s love for his artwork, or to the mother’s devotion to her sons. Cicero talks about benivolentia as a permanent and constant affect, very distant from amor adulescentulorum. Seneca, in ben. 1.14, chooses to compare donor’s beneficia amabilia to the behavior of meretrix. The aim of this paper is to recognize the tight bind of love and interest underlying these analogies, and to explain how it could be, after all, a pattern useful for re-thinking the nature of contemporary philanthropy.
Prima del perdono: "non condannare" in Roma antica
2016
Questo saggio affronta il tema che è posto al centro della Settimana Alfonsiana 2016 chiamando in causa le connessioni che la riflessione etico-politica compiuta in Roma antica ha saputo intrecciare tra idee come giustizia, violazione, condanna, e ancora dono della vita, compassione, autorità. La considerazione delle categorie culturali romane utili a interpretare il “non condannare” di Gv 8 introduce quindi dentro la riflessione sulla "clementia", sulle prerogative che appartengono alle figure di autorità, sull’importanza di distinguere la generica emozione dalla determinazione etica di rimettere la colpe degli uomini, e infine riporta dentro l’azione espressa dal verbo latino "ignoscere".…
Perceptual Self-Awareness in Seneca, Augustine, and Olivi
2013
This article traces the philosophical idea of self-perception from the times of ancient Stoicism to the thirteenth century by analyzing the views of Seneca, Augustine, and Olivi. The central argument is that they defend the same idea according to which self-preservation and the appropriate use of one’s body requires awareness thereof, despite the obvious contextual differences and the uncertainty of direct historical connections between the authors. They think that this kind of self-awareness does not belong only to human beings, because irrational animals need to perceive their bodies, the functions of their bodily parts, and to perceive themselves as living beings in order to act appropri…
L'exemplum di Scipione l'Africano in Sen. dial. XII 12 6: una proposta di esegesi.
2012
The analysis of literary source shows in the exemplum paupertatis of P.Cornelius Scipio Africanus, included by Seneca in Consolatio ad Heluiam matrem, a structure which conforms to a greek rhetorical pattern(commander virtous, but poor, which leaves no dowry to his daughters). In our opinion, Seneca's paternity justifiesthe absence of exemplum into other works prior to Seneca.
Seneca: Elämän lyhyydestä
2018
Kirja-arvostelu teoksesta Seneca: Elämän lyhyydestä, suom. Juhana Torkki, Otava 2018 nonPeerReviewed
Libri e reciprocità. Aspetti simbolici della circolazione libraria tra Cicerone e Tacito
2015
In this ‘late age of printing’, while we still feel part of a book culture, other media have taken the place of books in important respects. The change has affected not only the objects used for writing or reading or communicating, but also the frames of meaning hitherto associated with these practices. This paper sets out to discuss some types of meaning attaching to books in Latin literature from Cicero to Tacitus. Reconstructing the cultural meanings of books in literary representations from the Latin world could prove helpful by raising questions about our ability to orient ourselves in the present period of change.
Disumano, troppo umano. La maschera del tiranno e l’antropologia dei filosofi (da Sofocle a Seneca)
2019
Tyranny is often regarded as "a perennial problem" (Boesche 1996) on the basis of its ubiquitous presence in literature. Even more enduring is the problem of how to define human nature, its place in the environment, and its relationship to the divine – a core issue of philosophical anthropology (Pansera 2001, Honenberger 2015). In the present paper, I shall approach the literary construction of the tyrant figure in Greek and Roman tragedy from the holistic perspective of philosophical anthropology. I will focus on three well-known dramas (Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Antigone and Seneca’s Thyestes) which put great emphasis on the moral and cognitive status of tyrants as “exceptional” hum…
Pauperem praeferam: Beneficentia e dono ai poveri tra Cicerone e Seneca
2018
L’articolo si propone di esaminare il significato specifico della beneficentia a Roma antica in rapporto alla rivalutazione del ruolo degli inopes come destinatari delle forme di liberalitas all’interno della rappresentazione fornita da Cicerone nel De officiis e da Seneca nel De beneficiis. Se Cicerone rivendica l’utilità del dono ai poveri (purché meritevoli) evidenziando come esso comporti un ritorno non solo in termini di riconoscenza ma anche di gloria (Off. 2, 63; 69-71), Seneca si serve dell’apologo di Eschine (Ben. 1, 8-9) per dimostrare come il pauper, benché privo di mezzi, possa trovare in se stesso le risorse più adeguate al contraccambio virtuoso. Seneca fa un passo ulteriore t…
La vita degli oggetti: il ruolo della cosa donata in Seneca
2014
This paper highlights the very active role of objects in the practice of gift exchange, focusing on the representation of munus and donum which emerges from Seneca's De beneficiis and Medea's tragedy. Examining the function of the gift and its cultural patterns permits a critical comparison with anthropological studies concerning the theory of the spirit of the gift (hau) formulated by Marcel Mauss and the theme of inalienable gifts, elaborated by Annette Weiner. Such an analysis emphasizes the objects' propensity to stimulate the memory of the receiver and to arouse his gratitude. Moreover, the gift, imbued with the giver's identity, is suitable to replace him not only in gift-giving relat…