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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 8-page paper compares the two works, Seneca's 'On Noise' and Plutarch's 'A Consolation to his Wife.' Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVSeneca.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
conversational in tone, even when touching the most profound topics" (Fort). Im not sure Id call "On Noise" profound, but its certainly a lot of fun and makes some
very good points. Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch) seems to have been a much gentler man, possibly because he had been a priest of Apollo ("Plutarch, Priest of the Delphic Oracle").
It was his purpose in many of his works to "portray character and reveal its moral implications," ("Plutarch") and that is certainly true of his letter to his wife.
Seneca Senecas piece "On Noise" begins as a very funny essay on how various types of noises affect him. He writes that his rooms are over a
public bathhouse, and he can hear everything that goes on: the grunts as the "strenuous types" do their exercises with hand weights (or pretend to do them-indicating that going
to the gym just to be seen is an older idea than we thought); the smacks as a masseuse pummels his customer; the screams of someone having his armpits plucked;
the splash as someone jumps into the pool (Seneca, 5). When someone says he "must be made of iron" to be able to ignore all this noise, he replies
that as long as the noise is a sort of general background roar, he can ignore it, but when he can make out individual voices, it becomes difficult to concentrate.
He says that intermittent noises are harder to ignore than constant ones (I think we can all agree with that); he can even ignore "this fellow tuning horns and flutes
... and emitting blasts instead of music" (Seneca, 5, 6). I find the words "emitting blasts" extremely funny, and they are a good indication of the tone of the
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