Seneca the Philosopher, and His Modern Message

by Richard Mott Gummere

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

178 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1963

About the author

A very outgoing and friendly man, Richard Mott Gummere was primarily a Latinist and administrator in three different important institutions where he exerted considerable influence on college student selection and admission, setting standards that always kept in mind the role of the classics, especially Latin. Always conscious of the role of the classics in American life, late in his career he wrote especially on the impact that Greece and Rome had on American colonial history, opening up a mostly unexplored and unrecognized field of investigation whose importance is only now beginning to be mined for the new perspective it provides for a more accurate understanding of American colonial history. Despite his “biographical, discursive, exaggerated claims of classical influence,” Gummere “demonstrated that the Founding Fathers were familiar not only with English and French writers on government but also the classical sources; and he introduced the concept of refraction to characterize how early Americans selected and adapted classical theory and practice of politics and government to their own needs” (Meyer Reinhold).

Reviews

[Jacqui]

This book talked very little about Seneca's actual philosophy, instead running through all the various thinkers down through the ages who respected or disregarded his works. Not what I was hoping for.