Seneca: A Life

by Emily Wilson

Hardcover

Published March 5, 2015

About the author

Emily R. Wilson (b. 1971) is a Professor in the Department of Classical Studies and Chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory. She has a BA from Oxford in Classics, an M. Phil., also from Oxford, in English Literature (1500-1660), and a Ph.D. from Yale in Classics and Comparative Literature. Her first book was Mocked with Death: Tragic overliving from Sophocles to Milton (Johns Hopkins, 2004). Her second book was The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint (Harvard UP 2007). Her third was "Seneca: A Life" (also published in the US as "The Greatest Empire": Penguin/ OUP USA, 2015). She has published verse translations of Seneca's tragedies (Oxford World's Classics), Euripides ("The Greek Plays", Modern Library Random House), and The Odyssey (Norton, fall 2017). Other publications include various chapters and articles on the reception of classical literature in English literature, and reviews in the TLS and LRB. She is the classics editor for the revised Norton Anthology of World Literature, and Western Literature.

Reviews

[Leonid Varpahovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written biography of Seneca with emphasis on his contribution to Stoic philosophy. Even though the author greatly admires Seneca as a philosopher, she is very sceptical about his personal life and personal qualities. She is stopping short of calling Seneca a hypocrite but questions whether he would have made a better emperor than Nero.

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book, I highly recommend!