Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
3-2014
Abstract
Joseph Addison’s 1713 play, Cato: A Tragedy, dramatizes the final days of Cato the Younger’s resistance to Julius Caesar before his eventual suicide at Utica in 46 BC. Although Addison initially seems to present Cato as a model for emulation, we argue that Addison is ultimately critical of both Cato and the Stoicism he embodies. Via the play’s romantic subplot and via his work as an essayist, Addison offers a revision of the Catonic model, reworking it into a gentler model that elevates qualities such as love, friendship, and sympathy and that is more appropriate to the type of peaceful civil and commercial society he wishes to promote.
Discipline
Ethics and Political Philosophy | Political Theory
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Review of Politics
Volume
76
Issue
2
First Page
223
Last Page
241
ISSN
0034-6705
Identifier
10.1017/S0034670514000060
Publisher
University of Notre Dame
Embargo Period
3-30-2021
Citation
HENDERSON, Christine Dunn, & YELLIN, Mark.(2014). "Those stubborn principles": From stoicism to sociability in Joseph Addison’s Cato. Review of Politics, 76(2), 223-241.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3283
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670514000060