FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W1566168105> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W1566168105 endingPage "122" @default.
• W1566168105 startingPage "102" @default.
• W1566168105 abstract "Diogenes the Cynic in the Dialogues of the Dead of Thomas Brown, Lord Lyttelton,and William Blake David Mazella Diogenes once passing neare to Hell Beheld Mydas, that sometime liv'd a King, Now in Infernall Beggery to dwell, Base, ragged, dispossesst of ev'ry thing; And laughing said, ah ah my golden Asse, Ist possible the world comes thus to Passe? —Arthur Warren, Poverties Patience (1605) Dialogues of the Dead and Cynic Philosophy When Lucian of Samosata composed his Dialogues of the Dead in the second century A.D., he gave Diogenes the Cynic an important though intermittent role in its underworld debates and intellectual satire.1 Lucian's Dialogues featured not only Diogenes, but other Cynics such as Menippus, Crates, and Antisthenes, inclusions which only underscored the emblematic function of the Cynic philosopher in this newly invented genre. The intimate and long-standing connection between the Dialogues of the Dead and Cynic philosophy reflects some of the genre's most important features: the philosopher as an unlikely ethical hero; the noisy competition of various philosophical sects; and the sad or absurd fates of the rich and powerful in the pagan underworld's democracy of death.2 The close generic link between Diogenes and the Dialogues of the Dead continued for a remarkably long time in European literary history, running from Lucian through both the humanist and Enlightenment-era reception, translation, and imitation of Lucian's satire.3 This essay will focus on the emblematic role of Diogenes the Cynic in three eighteenth-century English contributions to the genre: Thomas Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702), George, Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of The Dead (1760/65), and William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793). Rather than argue for a continuous, evolving tradition [End Page 102] that has uniformly affected the philosopher's depiction in all three works, I will stress instead how Diogenes appears as a discontinuous, freestanding trope within each work's treatment of the underworld. In each example, Diogenes is shown to be visibly affiliated with the Lucianic-satiric tradition, but he also reflects the pressures of topical and historical events taken from the author's present. Because of this combination of topical, historical, and Lucianic characteristics, Diogenes in these dialogues becomes a symbol of the ancient moralist incongruously brought into a modernity which he despises, and which threatens to turn his moral poses into burlesque. Each of these eighteenth-century dialogues uses Diogenes to show how a simple and self-sufficient morality can be ironized, threatened, or overturned by the increasing refinement of manners of those around him. Thus, the eighteenth-century Dialogue of the Dead often worries over the possibility that not only manners, but morality itself—as represented by the ancient and perhaps irrelevant moralist Diogenes—could be vulnerable to the passage of time. With Blake, however, the scale of both the moral critique and the passage of time has become so vast that Diogenes has been elevated into a form of prophet; consequently, the distinctions upheld in the earlier dialogues between past and present, or ancient and modern, have simply vanished into the prophet's perception of the infinite. While these dialogues wrestle with the issue of how morality and the moralist are affected by history, their depictions of Diogenes turn on three crucial issues: topicality, so that each dialogue-writer uses Diogenes as a convenient device to reference and comment upon some contemporary issue, figure, or event for his readers; truth-telling, so that when Diogenes assumes his traditional role as moralist in the underworld, his blunt comments upon past and present events make him into a surrogate for the moralizing author; and the protest against modernity, so that the dialogue-writer uses Diogenes's attacks upon corruption, artificial manners, and rampant pleasure-seeking as a precedent for his own rejection of modernity.4 Though these issues are relevant for all three dialogues, Brown seems most interested in exploiting the topicality of the genre, Lyttelton the possibilities of truthful historical discussion of politics, and Blake the potential for the broadest possible critique of his own historical moment. Diogenes the Cynic in Diogenes Laertius and Lucian..." @default.
• W1566168105 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W1566168105 creator A5050091989 @default.
• W1566168105 date "2006-01-01" @default.
• W1566168105 modified "2023-09-23" @default.
• W1566168105 title "Diogenes the Cynic in the Dialogues of the Dead of Thomas Brown, Lord Lyttleton, and William Blake" @default.
• W1566168105 cites W1564562776 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W1598662657 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W1712055002 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W1963965378 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2009777389 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2026094196 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2051693554 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2119859271 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2326659700 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2334761052 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W2809144184 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W3068141455 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W605578900 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W617939407 @default.
• W1566168105 cites W632438182 @default.
• W1566168105 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/tsl.2006.0008" @default.
• W1566168105 hasPublicationYear "2006" @default.
• W1566168105 type Work @default.
• W1566168105 sameAs 1566168105 @default.
• W1566168105 citedByCount "3" @default.
• W1566168105 countsByYear W15661681052014 @default.
• W1566168105 countsByYear W15661681052016 @default.
• W1566168105 countsByYear W15661681052020 @default.
• W1566168105 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W1566168105 hasAuthorship W1566168105A5050091989 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C153606108 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C27206212 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C2780326160 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConcept C51364203 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C124952713 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C138885662 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C142362112 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C153606108 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C27206212 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C2780326160 @default.
• W1566168105 hasConceptScore W1566168105C51364203 @default.
• W1566168105 hasIssue "2" @default.
• W1566168105 hasLocation W15661681051 @default.
• W1566168105 hasOpenAccess W1566168105 @default.
• W1566168105 hasPrimaryLocation W15661681051 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2262738140 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2330202712 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2348359710 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2349437106 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2350566047 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2366846777 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2542335831 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2748952813 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W2899084033 @default.
• W1566168105 hasRelatedWork W655662959 @default.
• W1566168105 hasVolume "48" @default.
• W1566168105 isParatext "false" @default.
• W1566168105 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W1566168105 magId "1566168105" @default.
• W1566168105 workType "article" @default.