Selected Essays and Dialogues by Plutarch
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".
Plutarch (c.50-c.120 AD) was a writer and thinker born into a wealthy, established family of Chaeronea in central Greece. He received the best possible education in rhetoric and philosophy, and traveled to Asia Minor and Egypt. Later, a series of visits to Rome and Italy contributed to his fame, which was given official recognition by the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Plutarch rendered conscientious service to his province and city (where he continued to live), as well as holding a priesthood at nearby Delphi. His voluminous surviving writings are broadly divided into the moralworks and the Parallel Lives of outstanding Greek and Roman leaders. The former (Moralia) are a mixture of rhetorical and antiquarian pieces, together with technical and moral philosophy (sometimes in dialogue form). The Lives have been influential from the Renaissance onwards. Richard Talbert was born in England in 1947. He was a scholar of The King's School, Canterbury, and of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he gained a Double First Class Honors in Classics, followed by a doctorate which was the basis of his first book, Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily. After his appointment in 1970 to teach ancient history at Queen's University, Belfast, his research extended into Roman history and the production of his major work, The Senate of Imperial Rome, which won the Goodwin Award of Merit. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. After three years as Professor of History at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, in 1988 he moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor. He currently directs an international project to produce what will be the first major classical atlas since the last century.
Christopher Pelling is professor of classics at Oxford University and a fellow of Christ Church.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780192830944 |
| ISBN 10 | 0192830945 |
| Title | Selected Essays and Dialogues |
| Author | Plutarch |
| Series | World's Classics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1993-06-17 |
| Number of pages | 460 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |