Abstract
Abstract
This chapter argues that Seneca finds therapeutic potential in even the misguided sensations of stupefaction and anxiety. Seneca both portrays and evokes this cluster of affects in two of his descriptions of natural disaster in the Natural Questions: the flood passage that ends book 3, and the treatment of earthquakes at the beginning of book 6. From a Stoic perspective, stupefaction and anxiety are ethically problematic, since they stem from an incomplete understanding of the world. I read these “ugly feelings” through the lens of the work of affect theorist Sianne Ngai, arguing that, by dulling the subject to fear, a truly vicious passion, stupefaction and anxiety paradoxically replicate certain aspects of Stoic serenity.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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