SENECA

Workes of Lucius Annaes Seneca

SENECA. The Workes of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Both Morall and Naturall. Translated by Tho. Lodge. London: William Stansby, 1614. Folio, contemporary full brown calf rebound with the original covers laid down, gilt centerpieces, new spine label and endpapers. $6500. First "complete edition" in English of the moral and philosophical essays of Seneca the Younger, "undoubtedly the most brilliant figure of his time" and a towering figure in Western intellectual history, illustrated with finely engraved title page depicting the great thinker's coerced suicide. Once Nero's tutor, the Spanish-born statesman and philosopher Seneca later stood accused of conspiring to assassinate his former pupil—perhaps, it was rumored, in order to seize the imperial throne for himself. "In view of his former services, he was graciously permitted to commit suicide" (Russell, 260). According to tradition, Seneca consoled his grieving family on the eve of his death by telling them, "I leave you what is of far more value than earthly riches, the example of a virtuous life" (Russell, 260). He left to Western thought and culture numerous essays and epistles setting forth his morality and somewhat syncretistic philosophy, often blending aspects of Stoicism, Cynicism and Epicureanism; nine tragedies that probe the depths of human emotion; and even a scathing satire of Emperor Claudius' deification. Throughout his writings, "Seneca's primary aim is to persuade us to act and think rightly, not to prove that certain ethical propositions are true… In his favorite metaphor, he was a 'physician' of the soul… The acuteness of his psychological insights and the sanity of his particular moral advice make him of the greatest interest to those concerned with the human heart and its strivings after virtue" (Edwards VII:406-07). Seneca's influence proved both immediate and enduring. "Several of the [Roman Catholic church] Fathers claimed him as a Christian, and a supposed correspondence between him and Saint Paul was accepted as genuine by such men as Saint Jerome" (Russell, 260). "Certainly the tragedies of Seneca were widely read in Elizabethan England… The evidence is overwhelming that they were deliberately imitated by Elizabethan dramatists"—including Shakespeare–"and that such imitation left definite marks upon the course of English drama" (Ribner, 38; see also Daalder, English Studies 1984:5). Seneca's Morals exercised a life-long influence on George Washington (see Brookhiser, 122-23); and Thomas Jefferson praised the "fine" philosopher for "giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality" (Sowerby 1324). Seneca's unrelenting love of virtue, mastery of language and wide-ranging intellect have led modern scholars to recognize him as "undoubtedly the most brilliant figure of his time, and, excepting Tacitus, the most important thinker and writer of the post-Augustan Empire… No writer, ancient or modern, shows a more complete mastery of the pathology of the mind" (Peck, 1443-44). Prior to this much admired translation by Lodge, only a handful of the moral treatises upon which Seneca's fame rests had seen print in English. Lodge's translation marks "the first complete edition [but omits the plays] and is worthy to rank with the works of Holland… in precision and elegance" (Pforzheimer). This copy contains leaves b1-3 ("Epistola") and b6 ("In Momum"), lacking in most copies. Separate title pages for the Epistles and Tracts, both dated 1613. STC 22213. Pforzheimer 625. Brueggemann, 652. Moss II, 586. Expert repair to margins of title pages and final leaf, not affecting text. Boards quite lovely. A beautiful copy. Scarce.

• USD 6,500.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: 54429

• Antiquariat: Bauman Rare Books (USA)