Essays by an international team of scholars in Latin literature and ancient philosophy explore the understanding of emotions (or 'passions') in Roman thought and literature. Building on work on Hellenistic theories of emotion and on philosophy as therapy, they look closely at the interface between ancient philosophy (especially Stoic and Epicurean), rhetorical theory, conventional Roman thinking and literary portrayal. There are searching studies of the emotional thought-world of a range of writers including Catullus, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, Statius, Tacitus and Juvenal. Issues of debate such as the ethical colour of Aeneas's angry killing of Turnus at the end of the Aeneid are placed in a broad and illuminating perspective. Written in clear and non-technical language, with Greek and Latin translated, the volume opens up a fascinating area on the borders of philosophy and literature.

This book contains a collection of 13 essays from leading scholars on the relationship between passionate emotions and moral advancement in Greek and Roman thought. Recognising that emotions played a key role in whether individuals lived happily, ancient philosophers extensively discussed the nature of "the passions", showing how those who managed their emotions properly would lead better, more moral lives. The contributions are preceded by an introdution to the subject by John Fitzgerald. Writers discussed include the Cynics, the Neopythagorians, Aristotle and Ovid; the discussion encompasses philosophy, literature and religion.

Preamble : on the way -- Introduction : en route -- Making use : plaustrum -- Power steering : currus -- The other chariot : essedum -- Conveying women : carpentum -- Portable retreats : lectica -- Envoi : the end of the road.

Anger is found everywhere in the ancient world, starting with the very first word of the Iliad and continuing through all literary genres and every aspect of public and private life. Yet it is only recently, as a variety of disciplines start to devote attention to the history and nature of the emotions, that Classicists, ancient historians and ancient philosophers have begun to study anger in antiquity with the seriousness and attention it deserves. This volume brings together a number of significant studies by authors from different disciplines and countries, on literary, philosophical, medical and political aspects of ancient anger from Homer until the Roman Imperial Period. It studies some of the most important ancient sources and provides a paradigmatic selection of approaches to them, and should stimulate further research on this important subject in a number of fields.

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy. The papers, many of them previously inaccessible to non-specialist readers, deal with such fundamental issues as the relationship between style and content in the exploration of ethical issues; the nature of ethical attention and ethical knowledge and their relationship to written forms and styles; and the role of the emotions in deliberation and self-knowledge. Nussbaum investigates and defends a conception of ethical understanding which involves emotional as well as intellectual activity, and which gives a certain type of priority to the perception of particular people and situations rather than to abstract rules. She argues that this ethical conception cannot be completely and appropriately stated without turning to forms of writing usually considered literary rather than philosophical. It is consequently necessary to broaden our conception of moral philosophy in order to include these forms. Featuring two new essays and revised versions of several previously published essays, this collection attempts to articulate the relationship, within such a broader ethical inquiry, between literary and more abstractly theoretical elements.

"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

Christopher Gill offers a wide-ranging and original account of what is new and distinctive in Hellenistic and Roman ideas about selfhood and personality. He focuses upon Stoic and Epicurean philosophy and its relationship to earlier Greek thought (especially Plato) and comtemporary literature.

This book examines the textual representations of emotions, fear in particular, through the lens of Stoic thought and their impact on depictions of power, gender, and agency. It first draws attention to the role and significance of fear, and cognate emotions, in the tyrant's psyche, and then goes on to explore how these emotions, in turn, shape the wider narratives. The focus is on the lengthy epics of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid, and Silius Italicus' Punica. All three poems are obsessed with men in power with no power over themselves, a marked concern that carries a strong Senecan fingerprint. Seneca's influence on post-Neronian epic can be felt beyond his plays. His Epistles and other prose works prove particularly illuminating for each of the poet's gendered treatment of the relationship between power and emotion. By adopting a Roman Stoic perspective, both philosophical and cultural, this study brings together a cluster of major ideas to draw meaningful connections and unlock new readings.