ABSTRACT
Historians of philosophy and of Victorian culture alike have found it hard to agree on a definition of Stoicism which captures the complexity of its cultural reception in nineteenthcentury Britain. Should we restrict ourselves to philosophical ideas which identify themselves clearly with the various Greek and Roman Stoic writers, or should we rather concern ourselves with the examination of a wider cultural attitude towards pain, difficulty and the challenges of life? To put it differently, we can confine ourselves to the discussion of Stoicism, with a capital “S,” or broaden out to include “stoicism,” written in lower case. In the words of Gordon Hartford, the term “Stoic” should refer to the “intentional attaining of the goals of the Greek and later Roman philosophy of Stoicism” while with “stoic,” he writes, “we are in a laxer field of meaning, using here a word which has become proverbial in its reach to cover austere steadfastness, a type of uncomplaining endurance” (Hartford 1999: 53). Even if we were to limit ourselves to a discussion of the impact of Stoic philosophy upon
Victorian culture, this would itself be no easy task. For “Stoic philosophy” is itself notoriously difficult to define. As Hartford continues, “The sources of its data are incomplete […] its origins are unclear and our knowledge of it parlous. The best known collection of Stoic works is called Fragmenta and no whole book survives either by the so-called founder of the Stoic school, Zeno, or by its most prolific exponent, Chrysippus” (Hartford 1999: 52). This was a problem with which Victorian scholars, philosophers and critics were to struggle themselves. Richard Graves, a curate and classical scholar, who, with his popular translation of Marcus Aurelius’sMeditations, published in 1792, did much to introduce many early Victorians to Stoic ideas, complained in his introductory essay entitled “A Slight View” of Stoicism, that “It is very difficult to give a clear and consistent account of the stoical doctrines, as the later disciples of Zeno, their founder, differ widely from the earlier, and most of them from their master” (Graves 1792: ix). Given these difficulties, it is necessary to exercise considerable caution when ascribing
“Stoic” ideals or ideas to anyone. Thus, for example, Hartford strikes an important note of caution in relation to the poetry of Matthew Arnold, who has often been described as the Victorian stoic poet par excellence:
Self-discipline, self-knowledge, self-respect, and self-confidence characterise the Stoic, but they also characterise many who have never heard of Stoicism, or, if they
have, do not choose to embrace it as their guide to conduct. Characteristics such as fortitude, dignity, steadiness, self-reliance, and an unruffled demeanour are so little the monopoly of Stoicism that it is questionable to identify Stoic characteristics behind several lines simply because Arnold showed an interest in Stoicism, more particularly Epictetus and Aurelius. He drew from so many sources in his learning, among them Plato, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Newman, that it is risky to annex “self-schooled, self-scanned […] self-secure” [quotations from Arnold’s poetry] for Stoicism, given that several of Arnold’s spiritual mentors displayed those characteristics in abundance.
