Selected Essays and Dialogues

Plutarch, Donald Russell

Oxford University Press, 1993 - Drama - 431 pages

This new translation of a selection of Plutarch's miscellaneous works - the Moralia - illustrates his thinking on religious, ethical, social, and political issues. Two genres are represented: the dialogue, which Plutarch wrote in a tradition nearer to Cicero than to Plato, and the informal treatise or essay, in which his personality is most clearly displayed. His diffuse and individual style conveys a character of great charm and authority. Plutarch's works have been admired and imitated in Western literature since the Renaissance. Montaigne, who read Amyot's translation, considered Plutarch's Moralia to be a 'breviary', a book without which 'we ignorant folk would have been lost'. For Ralph Waldo Emerson it was a favourite bedside book, and an inspiration: 'a poet might rhyme all day with hints drawn from Plutarch, page on page.'.

Contents

• Superstition 1416471: 14
• Oracles in Decline 2640938: 26
• Why Are Delphic Oracles No Longer Given: 57

About the author

PLUTARCH. c.46--c.125 Considered by many to be the most important Greek writer of the early Roman period, Plutarch was a member of a well-to-do Greek family, a chief magistrate, a priest at Delphi, and an exceptionally well-read individual. His philosophical views were based on those of Plato and, although a Greek, he esteemed the achievements and attributes of the Romans. By the time Plutarch's works were published for the first time in the eleventh century, some had already been lost. He wrote innumerable essays on philosophical, historical, political, religious, and literary subjects, 78 of which survive today and are known collectively as the "Moralia." He is known primarily, however, for his Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans, which consists of 50 biographies---23 of prominent Greeks, 23 of Roman leaders, and 4 separate lives---accompanied at intervals by short comparative essays. Although historical information is included in the work, Plutarch wrote it originally to inspire emulation in youth, so the emphasis is on character, moral choice, and anecdote. Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation into English of Parallel Lives became an important source for William Shakespeare which he used for three plays, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Selected Essays and Dialogues; World's classics
• Authors: Plutarch, Donald Russell
• Editor: Donald Russell
• Translated by: Donald Russell
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1993
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Apr 16, 2008
• ISBN: 0192830945, 9780192830944
• Length: 431 pages
• Subjects: Drama / General; History / Ancient / Greece; Literary Collections / Ancient & Classical; Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical; Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical