Plutarque
Plutarque (in Greek old Πλούταρχος / Ploútarkhos ), born with Chéronée in Béotie towards 46 a. J. - C., died at the same place in 125, is a biographer and moralist of the ancient Greece.
Biography
One fixes the years of the life of the Plutarque Philistine between 46 and 125 after J-C. It was born in Chéronée (small town in the east from Phocide, near to Delphes. Unfortunately, the historians have only little information on the life of the famous biographer, only the Souda (Xème century) and a note of Eusèbe de Césarée refer to its life. Testimonys more the consequences remain those which the writer slipped itself into his work. It is known wire of good family, which judged good to send it to the Platonic school of Athens where Ammonios teaches him sciences and philosophy towards 66. It obtains the Athenian citizenship. It goes on then a journey to Alexandria then in Rome where it teaches the Greek and moral philosophy under the reigns of Vespasien and Titus. It will remain again in Rome under Domitien in the years 90.Il there acquires the Roman citizenship and adopts the Gentilice Mestrius , in homage to his friend Florus It returns then in Chéronée where it is divided between the writing of his work and the public life (it organized religious holidays), it is named priest of Apollon in Delphes with life. It is a monumental and very fertile author several treaties of morals, philosophy, theology, of policy, a gifted scholar of an encyclopedic knowledge. In its biographies, he studies the virtue through his characters of hero and adopts a position which is not that of the historian. Plutarque adheres to the facts that it presents, it impregnates its account. It is a moralist and an observer, Platonic. Nevertheless, he is at the same time the enemy of stoical and the epicureans.
Work
The parallel Lives of the famous men (in Greek Βίοι Παράλληλοι / Bíoi Parállêloi ) gathers fifty biographies, of which 46 are presented per pair, by opposing a famous Greek and a Romain (for example Thésée and Romulus, Alexandre Large the and César, Démosthène and Cicéron). At the end of each doublet, most of the time, a short text ( σύγκρισις / súnkrisis ) compares the two characters. We lost the first pair, devoted to Épaminondas and Scipion. One goes back the writing to these biographies between 96 and 115.
Among the separate biographies appear that of Artaxerxès II, Aratos, and the eight biographies of Césars, Auguste to Vitellius. It is the most known work of Plutarque. She was admired of Montaigne like Grand Cop, and Shakespeare drew subjects of tragedy there.
The Œuvres morals are more than 230 treaties devoted to many and varied subjects. Only 79 reached us: Of curiosity , Of the peace of the heart , Of the virtues morals , Of the genius of Socrate , etc
He also wrote pythic Dialogs and Propos of table , imitated Plato.
Influences
The writings of Plutarque had an enormous influence on the European literature, in particular French and English. Shakespeare built some of its historical tragedies starting from the groundwork of some of the parallel Vies , translated by Thomas North. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendantalistes were influenced much by the Morale . Among his anglophone admirors one can quote Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Alexander Hamilton, John Milton, and Sir Francis Bacon but also Cotton Mather, Robert Browning. The Tests of Montaigne, works of Boétie, Erasme, Rabelais, later the work of Rousseau are deeply inspired by its works morals and the Parallel Vies . The sumptuous translation in French of the Parallel Lives by Jacques Amyot in the middle of XVIe century, constantly republished until today, reinforced its diffusion and made of Plutarque a frontier runner of Antiquity at the time modern, even a monument of the French letters.
In addition, in the novels of Maurice Leblanc, " Lives parallèles" are the book of bedside of the hero Arsène Lupin, which is revealing ambitions as well of the main character as of its author.
See too
Related articles
- famous Historians
- Works Morals
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