The Empire of the Self: Self-Command and Political Speech in Seneca and Petronius
In "The Empire of the Self", Christopher Star studies the question of how political reality affects the concepts of body, soul, and self. Star argues that during the early Roman Empire the establishment of autocracy and the development of a universal ideal of individual autonomy were mutually enhancing phenomena. The Stoic ideal of individual empire or complete self-command is a major theme of Seneca's philosophical works. The problematic consequences of this ideal are explored in Seneca's dramatic and satirical works, as well as in the novel of his contemporary, Petronius. Star examines the rhetorical links between these diverse texts. He also demonstrates a significant point of contact between two writers generally thought to be antagonists - the idea that imperial speech structures reveal the self.
Recognition and the character of Seneca's Medea.
This article examines the character and identity of Seneca's Medea. Focusing on the recognition scene at the end of the play, I investigate how Medea constructs herself both as a literary figure and as an implied human personality. The concluding scene of Seneca's Medea raises crucial questions about self-coherence and recognisability: in contrast to other moments of anagnōrisis in Greco-Roman drama, it confirms the pre-existing facets of Medea's identity, rather than revealing new ones. This concept of recognition as self-confirmation is also integral to Seneca's Stoic view of human selfhood, and Medea's use of Stoic principles in this play reinforces her dual status as textual entity and quasi-person.
Catullus 64 and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius: allusion and exemplarity 1
The sixty-fourth poem of Catullus, a work which has in times past been dismissed as contrived, is now appreciated precisely because it is carefully contrived. The majority of modern scholarship seems willing, implicitly or explicitly, to look upon the poem's intricacies and apparent contradictions as constituting part of its attraction, acknowledging that artifice does not necessarily preclude art. The complexities of poem 64 are contingent to a large degree upon its interaction with earlier poetic models. Structural devices of narrative are borrowed from a variety of sources; themes and scenes are delineated so as to reveal their full meaning through reader awareness of other works; literary allusions pervade the text. Perhaps the most salient intertextual feature of Catullus' epyllion is its interaction with previous literary treatments of the myth of Jason and Medea. In this regard, it has long been recognised that a poem of central importance for the reading of Catullus 64 is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, and this present exploration of allusion in poem 64 will concentrate on the intertextual connections between 64 and its Hellenistic epic predecessor.