Permission to Grieve
This chapter discusses grief and the Stoic notions of mourning and appropriate decorum in grieving. Cicero's candid reflections about the loss of his beloved daughter Tullia in letters, and his developed ideas about a therapy of grief in the Tusculan Disputations, provide some of the most insightful writings on this subject. This chapter argues that the question of how and whether one should grieve is reflected deep in the dialectic of Stoic discourse itself. It begins with several objections Seneca raised to specific forms of grief as well as his own proposals for acceptable forms of grief. It then turns to Cicero's analysis and his recommendations for both the reduction of grief and its cure. Throughout, this chapter generously draws on illustrations from the military as ways of assessing Stoic claims.
Keywords: grief, mourning, grieving, Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Seneca
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