Author: ALBRECHT, M. von,
Title: Wort und Wandlung. Senecas Lebenskunst.
Description: Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2004. 236p. Cloth. Nice copy. Series: Mnemosyne Supplementa, 252. ?This literary study of Seneca consists of a series of loosely connected chapters falling into two sections. In the first section )9-130) A. Adduces various ways in which Seneca?s linguistic techniques and literary virtuosity convey his philosophical message, including a consideration of the relation of the tragedies to the prose works. In the second section, A. treats the reception of Seneca?s teaching and style by the Christians in general and then by Montaigne. Finally some highlights of the German literary tradition to Seneca ar discussed (?). What holds these studies together is first, A.?s keen appreciation of the inseparability of Seneca?s literary technique from the philosophical message, and, second, his almost evangelical zeal to explain and defend Seneca and his writings. This last finally issues in a ringing call to philosophers to use their new appreciation of the importance of practical ethics and of the interrelation of content and form in a philosophical text to reevaluate Seneca?s philosophical contribution (219). The author's method, particularly in the first section, is to concentrate on a few texts, normally form the ?Letters to Lucilius?, which are presented in Latin and in translation. In the analysis of Seneca?s metaphors, which dominates the first three chapters, the author fulfils the expectations of the book?s title in one sense, I.e. by showing how Seneca highlights the difference between ordinary and philosophical language with the aim of replacing conventional with philosophical values towards, e.g. poverty and wealth. But this inversion of language is then shown to issue in a process that answers to the title in another sense: that of changing oneself through the use of language. So chapters four and five concentrate on Seneca?s pedagogic methods, showing how he perceives his kinship to Socrates in therms of non-systematic presentation and simultaneity of teaching and learning, and how, in the ?Letters?, Seneca stylises his own experience and turns himself into an example, as when he explains in Ep. 108 the effect of his own teachers on himself. Then, in chapter 7, A. Surveys various theories of the connection of Seneca?s tragedies and prose works and concludes that to construe the dramas as merely providing examples (?) plus precepts is inadequate. His own view is that Seneca shows his characters using all the techniques of self-exhortation that are used by the philosophical-committed, but to the opposite effect, i.e. placing the passions rather than reason in control (127). (?) The book leaved the reader with a realisation of how much can be extracted from Seneca?s writing by a sensitive and thoughtful reader and how much has been gleaned by such readers over the centuries.? (MIRIAM T. GRIFFIN in Gnomon, 2007, pp.75-76).

Keywords: 9789004139886