S.’s volume is a svelte and interesting contribution to the study of Seneca's means of figuration. Though limited to the Epistulae Morales, S.’s analysis has the merit of calling attention to the modern linguistic theory of ‘cognitive metaphor’ as a theoretical standpoint from which to gauge Seneca's use of meta-tropes.
The book comprises an introduction, four brief chapters, a select bibliography and an index locorum. The first chapter explores the body/soul metaphor. The second chapter targets the illustration of the soul as a fortress. In the third chapter S. explores the cognitive blending of iter vitae and iter ad sapientiam. Each chapter features a brief conclusion re-outlining the gist of the section. A short general conclusion summarises the findings of the study.
One of the main advantages of this book is the thorough assessment of the scholarship concerning the study of metaphors in Seneca. S. discusses fundamental works, in multiple languages, from early twentieth-century liminal analyses to the most recent contributions, Bartsch in particular (S. Bartsch and D. Wray [edd.], Seneca and the Self [2009]). Much attention is devoted to the work of M. Armisen-Marchetti (Sapientiae Facies [1989]), which remains the most important contribution to the study of the theory and practice of metaphors in Seneca.
S.’s book is predicated on what is known as the theory of conceptual metaphor. This is the theory in mainstream modern linguistics of metaphor and figuration. S. relies on the works of G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (Metaphors we Live by [1980]; Philosophy in the Flesh [1999]) and on G. Fauconnier's theory of blending (Mappings in Thought and Language [1997]). In cognitive linguistics a conceptual metaphor involves the comprehension of one conceptual domain in terms of another. A conceptual metaphor is based on two conceptual domains: the ‘source’ from which the metaphorical illustration is borrowed and the ‘target’ to which the metaphor refers and which is being processed in metaphorical terms. The various figurative connections that exist between the two domains are labelled ‘mapping’. Thus understanding a cognitive metaphor amounts to fully gauging a specific mapping. Fauconnier's conceptual blending assumes a process of subconscious integration of elements from different domains to achieve fundamental construal of thought and language.
S. relies on two main conceits of cognitive linguistics: (1) that thought is fundamentally metaphorical; (2) that mind is embodied and much of our metaphorical constructions depend on our biology, i.e. on the fact that we have a body as an unavoidable interface with reality. Chapter 1 is predicated on an analysis of the human body as a source domain to target the human soul. Lakoff and Johnson attempted something similar by targeting the pre-Socratics, Plato and Aristotle in a rather cursory fashion (1999, pp. 346–90). S. notices how the standing position signifies moral progress, one's gait is used as the equivalent of one's moral conduct, the size of one's body stands for moral greatness, the couplet of physical health/sickness corresponds to moral soundness/moral illness. The chapter moves then to the analysis of sight and digestion. The oculus with its perceptive ability or its blindness acts as a powerful source domain for knowledge/ignorance. Digestive issues are briefly touched on as a preamble to the couplets philosopher/medicus and proficiens/patient. Lastly, S. describes those illustrations attached to the movement of the human body in a metaphorical space. The conclusion revisits a locus classicus of cognitive linguistics, namely that upward and forward movements are signifiers of moral progress, while downward and backward directions imply a negative spiritual setting. Stasis is a figure for the wise man's apatheia.
Chapter 2 tackles the metaphor of the fortress of the soul, based on the theme of psyche as an enclosed space. S. proceeds to a systematic mapping. The wall around the besieged city represents the protective function of philosophy. Reason is construed as an inner wall that stands against the siege of vices. Even the theme of false expectations elicited by riches, something that appears to be disconnected from the figurative pervasiveness of bodily troping, is in fact related to the metaphor of the inner citadel that remains unshaken. The last part of the chapter touches on the stage/theatre metaphor: a blatant display of emotions cannot compromise the wise man's ataraxia. Even the stage-metaphor can be traced back to the module of the inner space.
In Chapter 3 S. avails himself of Fauconnier's theory of blending. The analysis revolves around the integration of the iter ad sapientiam and the iter vitae illustrations as the two blending faces of the ‘journey’ source domain. Within these itinera, tropes of vertical movement illustrate wisdom (which is compared to the peak of a mountain), while wandering signifies the effect of passions hindering the soul. The horizontal movement of seafaring is ambivalent and can have either positive or negative connotations. This is the case with the harbour, a signifier for wisdom, or of the sirens as metaphors for tempting passions. Death represents the blending result of the two itinera, for it is equally the natural outcome of one's biological trajectory and the final prize for the wise man who has reached the ultimate degree of wisdom: freedom from fear of death.
S.’s work contains some interesting and innovative methodological insights. I found particularly convincing the use of mapping to fully investigate the pregnancy of metaphor clusters in Seneca. Admittedly Armisen-Marchetti, in the central part of her work (1989, pp. 69–201), had already provided extensive mapping, though only in an extremely schematic list-like form. S. fully expands the potential of a few of these lists and provides a fine sample of the impact that such a method could have.
The discussion of images related to the theatre/stage, at the end of Chapter 1, is equally convincing, but there are ramifications issuing from this major field of illustration that S. does not tackle. Some, like the problem of the two Senecan authorial personas (the philosopher and the tragedian) may perhaps be beyond the scope of the volume. Yet theatre, as a metaphorical source, involves a reciprocity of seeing and being seen that could have been targeted in the context of the oculus-related images.
Further, the ‘the embodied mind’ as cornerstone of cognitive linguistics may function as a privileged standpoint to re-read Seneca. It is a promising method, mostly for providing conceptual unification but, I believe, not without facing some fundamental issues. In particular, when investigating the ‘body/soul metaphor’, S. does not seem to take into due account the fact that, for the Stoics, the soul is not any less material and bodily than the body. Even thoughts are bodies, according to Stoic lore. Thus, for Stoics, the target, the soul, belongs to the same domain as the source, the body. Stoic materialism makes the ground of this particular cognitive methodology less effective or, at the very least, much more problematic.
The empiricist nature of Stoic epistemology presents further issues. According to the foundational assumptions of cognitive linguistics, most of philosophical thinking is based on pre-conscious or un-conscious metaphorical grids that naturally exist as the unavoidable product of our biology; in contrast, the Stoics conceive the human mind as a blank slate (Aët. 4.11.1–2). To be fair, at least according to Sen., Ep. 120.4, nature provides men with ‘seeds of knowledge’, a remark that has contributed to regarding Stoicism as a form of ‘dispositional innatism’ (D. Scott, PCPhS 34 [1988], 146) rather than pure empiricism; but this does not solve the issue of pre-existing, innate rational structures, because Seneca, in the same passage, makes clear that, while the seeds will eventually develop, knowledge itself is not present at birth.
S. embraces the use of cognitive linguistics for the analysis of classical authors. The book is well written, with very few, negligible typographical errors. Though I believe that there are many limits to the effective applicability of this theory (at least for Stoicism), this work has the merit of calling attention to some important findings of modern linguistics that Classicists cannot afford to ignore any longer. In particular, the mapping technique can be a promising and systematic method of investigation. There is certainly much work ahead, and S. has opened the way.
