Advanced search
Start date
Betweenand


Faces of harmony in Seneca's Epistulae Morales

Full text
Author(s):
Matheus Clemente De Pietro
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Master's Dissertation
Press: Campinas, SP.
Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
Defense date:
Examining board members:
Isabella Tardin Cardoso; Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos; Moacyr Ayres Novaes
Advisor: Isabella Tardin Cardoso
Abstract

By reading through Seneca¿s Epistulae morales one notes that a considerable part of his doctrine is based on harmony, a concept that has not received the deserved attention in Senecan researches. While urging Lucilius in the search for wisdom, Seneca uses a great variety of images and examples that refers explicitly or implicitly to many kinds of harmony, e.g.: harmony between speech and deeds, life and speech, style and character, actions and nature, will and fate, body and soul, between actions among themselves. It was verified that such a ¿harmony¿ usually is not named by a single term or expression, but is indicated by words with similar acceptances. The study of the idea of conuenientia ¿ the straight Latin translation of the technical term homología (¿harmony¿ in Zeno¿s Stoicism) ¿ confirmed that Seneca also makes use of other words, that are more familiar to the current Latin language, among which there are concordia, consonans, consentire, constare and congruere. Excerpts of Seneca's philosophical letters that have been proved to hold valuable arguments to the study of the ¿harmony¿ were translated into Portuguese and annotated. The introductory study concerns about the particular way by which Seneca presents such an important Stoic concept in the selected corpus. The polissemy and images in the investigated texts play a central role in the understanding of the philosophical notion here considered. (AU)