The Stylus and the Scalpel - Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose

Seneca's developed metaphors draw on what is known to describe the unknown. They put hard ethical in highly accessible, and often quite entertaining, terms. The present book provides a functional description of Seneca's dialectical relation between metaphorical language and philosophy. It shows how Stoic philosophy finds a new means of expression in Seneca's highly elaborated rhetorical discourse, and how this relates to the social and cultural demands of Neronian culture. Metaphors are purposely utilized to work "collectively" rather than by category or type and that, therefore, the analysis of what metaphors do when Seneca chooses to combine them in clusters, demonstrates the existence of a "metanarrative of rhetoric". This approach is fundamentally innovative and has the advantage of gauging the functioning of Senecan style as a whole, rather than focusing on single features of its rhetorical functioning. The main target is to show how philosophical preaching materially contributes to the healing of human soul because it shapes the individual's cognitive faculty in a way that is physical and not simply figurative. The stylus and the scalpel blend in their functions. This kind of therapy is not just the simulacrum of a more "real" one, it is in itself medical in nature. Preface 7 Contents 11 Abbreviations 13 Note on Translations 17 Introduction 19 Part I: Theory: Seneca’s Rhetorical Strategies Between Stoic Tradition and Modern Linguistics 35 1 Metasemes and the Classical Tradition 35 2 Modern Theories on Metaphor and the Stoic System 70 3 Metaphors, Emotions, and Moral Progress 103 Part II: Practice: The Text and The Body 141 4 From Metaphor to Metaphors 141 5 Metaphorical Physiology 189 6 A Breathing Body 217 Epilogue 251 Bibliography 255 Index Rerum 275 Index Locorum 277