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Tom Wolfe's Epictetus |
| Section: MODERN THOUGHT / ESSAYS |
| Author: Jude P. Dougherty |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/2000 |
| Size: 3,234 Words, 20,093 Characters |
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As a result of reading The Stoics, Conrad becomes convinced that with courage he can endure and overcome the inhuman conditions into which he has been thrust. Although cast among evil and dangerous men, he finds within himself the will and ability to surmount adversity. Surrounded by bars and treated by guards as if he were an animal in a cage, he finds in Epictetus' teachings a sense of his own worth, an awareness that he is not just an animal but possesses in himself a "divine spark." This realization is accompanied by the notion that he is not alone in his struggles. There is a higher being--Zeus--whose help is to be sought. With hope he seeks the aid of Zeus, not realizing that by invoking Zeus he is praying. Miraculously he is liberated from jail and subsequently finds a new life, looking back upon his misfortune as a trial or test of his own inner mettle. Epictetus has given Conrad the awareness that he has dignity as a human person and the comforting thought that he is not alone in his struggles.
THE MERIT OF STOICISM
Among Western philosophies Stoicism is easily the most influential school of thought. Regarded by many as the loftiest and most sublime of philosophies, it flourished for about five hundred years from the time of its founder, Zeno (340--265 b.c.), to the death of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 121--180). Paul the Apostle is thought to have employed Stoic themes in his letters and oral teaching. The Stoic outlook can be found in Boethius, Ambrose, Tertullian, and many of the early church fathers. During the Middle Ages, elements of Stoic moral theory were known and used in the formulation of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theories of man and nature and of the state and society. Thomas Aquinas is especially indebted to the Stoic Cicero. In later centuries Francis Bacon, Thomas More, Erasmus, Malanchthon, Montesquieu, Spinoza, Descartes, and Pascal drew upon the Stoics. The Stoics were the well-loved companions of the American founders, notabl...
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...in a few classical texts that remain ever salient, ever new.
FOOTNOTES:
1.Christopher Dawson, The Gods of Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 1972), 165.
2.Arrian, Discourses, Book I, chapter 5.
3.Titus Livius, Preface to his History, vol. I (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1924). 4.Werner Jaeger, Paideia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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