| Popis: |
The chapter focuses on the genre’s potential, widely recognized by ancient practitioners and theorists alike, to cultivate friendship among individuals who for one reason or other are prevented from interacting face to face. Edwards shows how Seneca co-opts this particular aspect of the genre’s ideology, not least to further his educational programme and his self-conscious aspiration to a broad and enduring readership. Specifically, she argues that Seneca posits important parallels between the relationship amongst absent friends on the one hand and the relationship of philosophically minded students to earlier thinkers and practitioners of philosophy on the other, as both invite (indeed require) dialogic interactions mediated by writing and reading. This conversation with the dead in turn anticipates the mode of interaction between Seneca and future generations (including contemporary audiences). |
