Stoicism and Creative Works
What is the Stoic attitude toward creative works, from art to music to literature? Whenever this kind of question is asked we should first and foremost remember that, in a sense, it is the wrong question to pose. “Is X Stoic?” is a misleading way to begin an inquiry, because the point of Stoicism in particular, and of virtue ethics in general, is not to provide universal answers to our questions, but rather to offer a framework so that we, individually, work our way to reasonable answers, and in the process become better human beings.
That said, of course, some general considerations do apply pretty much uniformly from a Stoic perspective. For instance, Stoics ought, politically speaking, to fight against tyranny, as the famous “Stoic opposition” against the emperors Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian did. So what can we say about the Stoic attitude toward creative works?
Let me begin with a couple of case studies, and then move to the development of a broader conceptual framework inspired by Stoic philosophy.
The first obvious example is none other than Seneca the Younger, the ancient Stoic author of whom we have by far the most extensive surviving writings. In Stoic circles, he is usually talked about in terms of his famous Letters to Lucilius, a sort of informal Stoic curriculum. Or because of one of his masterpieces, On Anger. But Seneca also…
