Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy - Alex Dressler

Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy

(Autor)

Buch | Hardcover
322 Seiten
2016
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-107-10596-6 (ISBN)
129,65 inkl. MwSt
This book explores accounts of personhood developed by Roman writers, including Lucretius, Cicero and Seneca, and discusses the relevance of ancient texts to modern debates about the history of self. It will appeal to readers of classical literature interested in gender studies, as well as scholars of rhetorical, modern and postmodern theory.
While the central ideal of Roman philosophy exemplified by Lucretius, Cicero and Seneca appears to be the masculine values of self-sufficiency and domination, this book argues, through close attention to metaphor and figures, that the Romans also recognized, as constitutive parts of human experience, what for them were feminine concepts such as embodiment, vulnerability and dependency. Expressed especially in the personification of grammatically feminine nouns such as Nature and Philosophy 'herself', the Roman's recognition of this private 'feminine' part of himself presents a contrast with his acknowledged, public self and challenges the common philosophical narrative of the emergence of subjectivity and individuality with modernity. To meet this challenge, Alex Dressler offers both theoretical exposition and case studies, developing robust typologies of personification and personhood that will be useable for a variety of subjects beyond classics, including rhetoric, comparative literature, gender studies, political theory and the history of ideas.

Alex Dressler is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published articles in journals such as Helios, Ramus and Classical Antiquity, ranging in subject matter from feminism and the ancient novel to exemplarity and ancient rhetoric, and from deconstruction and the sociology of literature to aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis.

Introduction; 1. Love, literature, and philosophy; 2. The subjects of personification and personhood; 3. Mothers, sons, and metaphysics: others' agency and self-identity in the Roman stoic notion of a person; 4. Girl behind the woman: Cicero and Tullia, Lucretius and the life of the body-mind; 5. Embodied persons and bodies personified: the phenomenology of perspectives in Seneca, Ep. 121; 6. Nature's property in On Duties 1: the feminine communism of Cicero's radical aesthetics; Conclusion: repairing the text; Editions and commentaries consulted; Bibliography.

Erscheinungsdatum
Verlagsort Cambridge
Sprache englisch
Maße 160 x 235 mm
Gewicht 600 g
Themenwelt Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Vor- und Frühgeschichte
Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie Altertum / Antike
Geisteswissenschaften Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft Anglistik / Amerikanistik
Geisteswissenschaften Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10 1-107-10596-X / 110710596X
ISBN-13 978-1-107-10596-6 / 9781107105966
Zustand Neuware
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