Few works rival The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Rome's sixteenth emperor, with respect to having achieved an enduring legacy despite innumerable oversimplifications and misdescriptions. Eluding all standard literary categories and dubbed "a spiritual classic for generations," the stoic meditations by the last of Rome's reputed "five good emperors" have attracted a wide variety of adherents, ranging from the 19th-century English poet Matthew Arnold, who claimed that "the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul," to U.S. Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, to contemporary notables like the quarterback Tom Brady and the actress and singer Anna Kendrick. In this seminar we will embark on a close reading and in-depth discussion of The Meditations (in translation) to explore how and why it - as well as stoic philosophy in general - exerts a continued and considerable hold (not without controversy in some cases) on the wider imagination. For the final project, students will write their own "Meditations" in a manner consonant with our exploration of just what "Good King Marcus" might have been aiming for in writing his Meditations.
3-5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WAY-A-II
Few works rival The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Rome's sixteenth emperor, with respect to having achieved an enduring legacy despite innumerable oversimplifications and misdescriptions. Eluding all standard literary categories and dubbed "a spiritual classic for generations," the stoic meditations by the last of Rome's reputed "five good emperors" have attracted a wide variety of adherents, ranging from the 19th-century English poet Matthew Arnold, who claimed that "the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul," to U.S. Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, to contemporary notables like the quarterback Tom Brady and the actress and singer Anna Kendrick. In this seminar we will embark on a close reading and in-depth discussion of The Meditations (in translation) to explore how and why it - as well as stoic philosophy in general - exerts a continued and considerable hold (not without controversy in some cases) on the wider imagination. For the final project, students will write their own "Meditations" in a manner consonant with our exploration of just what "Good King Marcus" might have been aiming for in writing his Meditations.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.