ABSTRACT
According to two contemporary scholars in the sociology of emotions, ‘social institutions prescribe roles to bereaved persons; however, the newly bereaved might challenge them—loudly’. In his philosophical Consolation to this allegedly stubborn noble lady, Seneca carefully contrasts the positive value of memory with the abnormal psychology of prolonged grief, arguing that the latter ‘is destructive to the mourner, the neglected family, the community and the dead’. This chapter shows that the Consolation to Marcia makes a conscious move towards the different but evidently related genre of didactic poetry. Seneca’s reception of many aspects of the Epicurean tradition has been thoroughly studied. Seneca’s willingness to employ a number of psychagogic methods and theoretical constructs in order to console (and re-educate) Marcia also puts his work in contact with didactic epic.
