Bittersweet History: Cicero on Mixed Affect in Experiencing Literature
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Mario Baumann
Abstract
This chapter focuses on one of Cicero’s letters, Ad familiares 5.12, which Cicero wrote to L. Lucceius in 56/55 BC to ask him for a historiographical treatment of Cicero’s consulate. To this end, Cicero performs a complex speech act that involves naming, explaining and employing several forms of mixed affect. The chapter first analyses Cicero’s take on the bittersweet experience of reading history before it then turns to Cicero’s “meta-affective” movements in Fam. 5.12 that not only portray Cicero himself as having mixed feelings but also involve his addressee in an intricate play of affection, anticipation and surprise. It is shown that Cicero closely links affect and literary form so that all his reasoning about mixed feelings and his making use of them is tied to the letter’s textuality - what we can learn from a close reading of Fam. 5.12 is as much a meta-literary “message” as a “lesson” about mixed affect.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on one of Cicero’s letters, Ad familiares 5.12, which Cicero wrote to L. Lucceius in 56/55 BC to ask him for a historiographical treatment of Cicero’s consulate. To this end, Cicero performs a complex speech act that involves naming, explaining and employing several forms of mixed affect. The chapter first analyses Cicero’s take on the bittersweet experience of reading history before it then turns to Cicero’s “meta-affective” movements in Fam. 5.12 that not only portray Cicero himself as having mixed feelings but also involve his addressee in an intricate play of affection, anticipation and surprise. It is shown that Cicero closely links affect and literary form so that all his reasoning about mixed feelings and his making use of them is tied to the letter’s textuality - what we can learn from a close reading of Fam. 5.12 is as much a meta-literary “message” as a “lesson” about mixed affect.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- List of Figures XI
- Introduction 1
- Ambivalent Affects in Experimental Psychology 29
- Mixed Emotions in Emotion Communication: A Chimera in my Brain 45
- Mixed Emotions and the Climate Crisis in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction 63
- Ubi sunt? On the Varieties and Mixed Pleasures of Poignancy 79
- Being of Two Minds in Eleventh-Century China: Affective Bimodality in Guo Xi and Su Shi 97
- Explaining (Away?) Conflicting Emotions: A View from Sanskrit Aesthetic Phenomenology 115
- Odi et Amo: On Some Ancient Readings of Mixed Affect in Catullus 135
- Bittersweet History: Cicero on Mixed Affect in Experiencing Literature 155
- Ambivalent Feelings towards the Lupercalia: Discussing Civilisation in Republican and Early Imperial Rome 171
- Bibliography 187
- List of Contributors 205
- Index 207
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- List of Figures XI
- Introduction 1
- Ambivalent Affects in Experimental Psychology 29
- Mixed Emotions in Emotion Communication: A Chimera in my Brain 45
- Mixed Emotions and the Climate Crisis in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction 63
- Ubi sunt? On the Varieties and Mixed Pleasures of Poignancy 79
- Being of Two Minds in Eleventh-Century China: Affective Bimodality in Guo Xi and Su Shi 97
- Explaining (Away?) Conflicting Emotions: A View from Sanskrit Aesthetic Phenomenology 115
- Odi et Amo: On Some Ancient Readings of Mixed Affect in Catullus 135
- Bittersweet History: Cicero on Mixed Affect in Experiencing Literature 155
- Ambivalent Feelings towards the Lupercalia: Discussing Civilisation in Republican and Early Imperial Rome 171
- Bibliography 187
- List of Contributors 205
- Index 207
