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When reading the first volume of the Modern Library edition of Plutarch, I have found myself wondering why I put off reading him for so long. It is a glorious and messy brew.One final remark- I have yet to locate anything that presents itself as a companion to this book. First, I want to offer you reasons to read the Modern Library edition of Plutarch over the alternative such as the Loeb edition or the Penguin Travesty.The reasons for my preference for the Modern Library edition is two-fold. He is writing toward the end of the 1rst century AD- a period of Roman domination over just about everybody (that Plutarch knew of). If you are not as impressed as I am, so be it. The Dryden translation is a good one or so I believe simply because the voice of the author is distinctive, consistent and enjoyable. Wikipedia and the Oxford Classical Dictionary have been my constant companions as I have read P.
Why isn't there a commentary of the book as a whole which provides background history, prosography, maps, etc. I find that lack staggering. It gives you all of the biographies, in their original pairings and all the extant individual ones including a couple (of Galba and Otho) of biographies that are all that is left of a series on Roman emperors. For me, it has been a delight. That publisher decided to offer Plutarch by splitting up the pair biographies and then presenting all the biographies that had to do with, say, the Makers of Rome. In my reading, in other words, Plutarch is pushing for Greek culture to establish a counterweight or a critique to Roman hegemony.
For example, he will refer to Lyc., 2 to indicate the second section of the life of Lycurgus. 106 of the Modern Library edition). His paired biographies are based on a broad reading in many sources some of which are lost to us and known only through their presentation in P. He was a Platonist who was also well read in Aristotle as well as a fierce opponent of Stoicism and Epicurius. Never mind that Plutarch denied that he was writing history as such.
It is true to P's intention and it is cheap.The Penguins are (or should be considered)a joke. In the meantime, I can only encourage you to pick up a copy. Plutarch's writings should be offered to us in easy-to-digest (i.e., fairly short) books about something like the Rise of Rome rather than a very long book about the dynamic interactions between character, virtue, upbringing, fate (or Fortune or God, your pick) of the individual in interaction with that of their polis. And culturally, Rome is subject to the standards established by the Greeks like Plato, Aeschylus, Homer and Thucydides.Even more central to P.'s thinking are moral lessons to be learned from comparing great men whose characteristics in interaction with their upbringing created men of often conflicting virtues who then tried to use the circumstances of their times to achieve glory for themselves and their cities.This is an enormous theme with infinite variations. He is a subtle and entertaining companion.For my review, I want to do two things. Unfortunately, the Modern Library edition does not include the traditional section numbers so all references are much more difficult to chase down. I am currently reading Robert Lamberton's book on Plutarch.
He had much less use for Herodotus. Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greek and Romans is one of the central works in the Western literary and philosophical tradition. To read P is to be introduced to many of the great writers and thinkers of the Greeks and the Romans. P.'s weaves in through these studies thoughts on political philosophy, on the reliability of founding myths, on the struggle between the many and the few (class struggle, we like to call it)and other assorted themes. It was a favorite book and resource of Jefferson, Madison and others of the Founding Fathers. Needless to say, I think the Penguin editors are a bunch of maroons (although they do some things right like including a few maps to help us figure out where they heck Illyria, Thrace or Parthia were).The Loeb edition runs to eleven volumes, each of which includes the Greek and each of which is expensive. The Penguin Powers That Be know better than P. Reading this edition, I can understand why so many people have enjoyed P.
Never mind that he organized his writing around the paired biographies and that he had several purposes in doing so. P is fan of Thucydides, Homer and Hesiod and Pindar. Rome may be militarily supreme but that is a mere moment in Fortune's turning wheel. All these writers were deeply influenced by their reading of Plutarch.Plutarch (hereafter to be P)was a Greek writing in the first century after Christ. He doesn't give an answer although he suggests what his would be by talking about how the answer would differ from judges who value "riches, luxury, and dominion rather than in security, gentleness, and the independence which is accompanied by justice" (p.
Nobody, fears the Lord Editors of Penguinia, would want to read a complicated book like that. If that sort of thing is important to you, this lack may effect that choice of which edition of the Lives you choose. Toward the end, P basically asks if Rome is the better for the six centuries or so of constant warfare that she unleashed upon Italy and the world after the death of Numa. It is one of the keys to understanding Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Montaigne and Emerson.
As inordinate as my ignorance is, I cannot be the only reader of Plutarch that has decried that lack of a decent companion volume.I am currently reading Plutarch by Robert Lamberton and plan to read a few other secondary sources before I go on to volume 2. I will review them as I finish them especially if I find a stand alone sourcebook for the background knowledge necessary for a decent reading of Plutarch. For an instance, look to the Comparison that he makes after writing about Lycurgus and Numa. In that case, you will be singing my praises as well as Plutarch's.Addendum: Scholarly obsession compels me to reveal a flaw in the Modern Library edition that I have only become aware of since finishing the first volume. I said earlier that I found P to be a subtle writer. All of these sources along with many others are woven into his writings. He, like all scholars of the work, refer to the Lives by the life in question and section numbers.
From what I have seen of the Loeb, I don't think the notes are enough of an argument to favor this edition.So buy the Modern Library edition. for so long.The most important point I want to make is that I believe that Plutarch had several intentions behind his organization. But you may find yourself as carried away as I have been. And there are typically 30+ sections for each life.
This is a great collection of ancient biographies, written by Plutarch, who was really artist in the field of the literature. Even more than five stars for this masterpiece. The old English translation of the original Greek text made by Dryden can make some minor problems while reading the text.This edition of Plutarch's lives should be published in hardcover. Paperback edition made to give only four stars for this product.
I am a great fan of ancient history studies, and found this presentation of a classic to be quite satisfying. In addition, as expected, the purchase price, ease of ordering, speed of delivery, and integrity of product, were on the usual, excellent level.
Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, has Dryden as the translator; Wikipedia, much to my surprise, does not -- what can I say. [Update: My research to date has been inconclusive on the full nature of Dryden's role in this undertaking, but none of the more detailed resources I have turned to suggest that Dryden actually participated in this book as a "translator." Very possibly, this is one of those many little facts of history that have gone unrecorded and for which we shall have to content ourselves with the conjecture of scholarly experts. Certainly one of the interesting qualities in Plutarch is a kind of questioning of sources that the syntax of this edition brings out rather nicely. Once Clough's version came out, publishers seem to have had no reason to go back to the original which provides at least some indication that Clough had resolved some of the problems with the text. I am still researching this, but I should not be surprised if Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was not more involved in editing than was Dryden. It does not.
I am trying to get my hands on an earlier edition of the Clough revision to see what it might contain in the way of notes. But this is a minor problem in an otherwise well thought out and informative discussion of Plutarch and his book.The text itself - One of the reviewers here on Amazon calls this Clough's "train wreck" assuming that the difficulties in the text must lie with Clough because, concludes the reviewer, Dryden is a much better prose writer. I say that, however, as a non-classicist with little or no Greek, so I cannot be sure whether it really does reflect the original.Notes - My chief concern with the text would be that it lacks annotation or other textual apparatus beyond an index. What is most surprising, however, is how often Dryden is given as the translator of this volume in various less detailed references to the book. Moreover, I've noted rather a lot of confusion about this edition in reviews here on Amazon (see particularly the reviews associated with the hardbound Modern Library volumes). In all honesty Clough's notes are few and far between, but there is enough of value in them that, in my opinion, at least, they should have been included. In a couple of cases, the argument at the very beginning of the preface for example, he seems to drop his thoughts without fully completing them. This is particularly peculiar given that the cover states that it includes notes by Clough.
I'm not sure but that the complex clausal structures might not have their own virtue in a text like this. First off, let me clarify that what follows is a review of a particular edition of Plutarch's Lives, the current (2001) edition from Modern Library Classics. In fact, Dryden is not, properly speaking, the translator of this book. I am having trouble getting a copy of the original (pre-Clough) "Dryden" translation, although I should very much like to do a comparison.
Until I know better what these notes might entail, I'm loath to make any judgment. I found the preface quite intriguing. sometimes the amateurs outdo the professionals].Dryden's primary involvement in the project seems to have been his "Life of Plutarch" which is included in this edition only by way of a two short excerpts in Clough's Preface.Arthur Hugh Clough's Preface and Revisions - Clough was a nineteenth century poet. It fails in anyway to clarify the nature of the translation.
Clough's preface was, for me, a major reason I became interested in the Modern Library edition. I am still researching the Dryden edition, but thought I might offer a few comments to provide clarity and a better understanding of this edition for those whose buying decisions are based on the nature and quality of a particular translation."The Dryden Translation" - this unusual phrasing (which appears on the cover) has become the traditional descriptor for this version of the Lives. I think it more than has its merits. Several other reviews here do a fine job of that and I see no reason to cover the same ground. Nonetheless, I'm not quite sure what to make of the Modern Library advertising notes on the cover, but providing none. It is a solid piece of work from an individual who was neither a full time scholar, nor a particularly notable prose writer.
One would think that it would at least contain some mention of the relevance of this particular text (why reprint it now)., of the curious assignment of Dryden's name as translator to a book that he did not translate, and of the role that Clough played as a nineteenth century editor of a seventeenth century text.Additionally, and perhaps most warranting concern, Atlas's introduction covers such similar ground to Clough's Preface (even using many of the same quotations) that it feels rather curiously redundant.The cover - I cannot close without commenting on the cover. The language on the cover suggests that this book includes Clough's notes. It is not a review of the book itself and will not provide any information on the relevance of this wonderful classic or the many lives it includes or the ingenious structure of paralleling the lives of Greeks and Romans or the importance of this text to the history of biography. I hate to be too hard on Random House over something like this, notheless, I still feel I should provide some warning to potential buyers. [Update: I attempted to contact Random House about my concerns but, to my surprise, I could not get them to understand that I was not referring to the notes in the preface, but rather to notes for the text itself. This text is clearly more given to complex clausal structures than we would expect in a popular translation today.
It looks like wallpaper for a nineteenth century classicist's study. It is not a "modern" translation (I hate using the word "modern" here because I think of Clough as a modern, perhaps I should say it is not a twentieth or twenty-first century translation). In one article in Wikipedia he is described as an overseer for the edition and in another as editor-in-chief, but he is also described as having simply "lent" his name to the enterprise. And, not to be too snarky, but Clough and Random House deserve editors who understand the difference between textual notes and notes to a preface].Introduction by James Atlas - I wish I could speak more highly of the Modern Library introduction, but I am afraid I felt it was lacking on many levels. Few would doubt that Dryden was a better prose writer, but I strongly suspect that the translation in this case (not Dryden's as I have already pointed out) was aided by Clough's hand. As a result, the pure "Dryden" editions are older and more expensive.I find the text quite readable.
I have, since I first wrote this, purchased a copy of an early edition with the Clough edits. And quite honestly, I like it.I've given the book four stars because I see no reason to visit the sins of this particular edition upon the text as a whole, and the text has plenty of merits both as a translation and as a classic of literature.
Plutarch in his "Lives Of The Noble Grecians And Romans" written around 100 C.E., sheds new light on Greek and Roman history from their Bronze Age beginnings, shrouded in myth, down through Alexander and late Republican Rome. By the way Plutarch is even the only contemporary source of all the biographical information on Cleopatra, whom he writes about in his biographies of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. In fact all the founding fathers of note had read Plutarch and learned much from his fifty biographies of noble men of Greece and Rome. Plutarch writes of the rise of Roman Empire while Gibbon uses his scholarship to advance the story to write about its decline. His biographies are a great study in human character and what motivates leaders to decide and act the way they do, this masterpiece has proven to be still prescient today.If you are truly interested in a classical education, put this book on the top of your list. He was a proud Greek that was equally effected by Roman culture, a Delphic priest, a leading Platonist, a moralist, educator and philosopher with a deep commitment as a first rate writer. Plutarch is the lens that we use today to view the Greco-Roman past; his work has shaped our perceptions of that world for 2,000 years. Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew that there were three books every gentleman had to have familiarity with; Plutarch's "Lives", Livy's "History of Rome" and Virgil's Aeneid.
Being a Roman citizen, Plutarch was afforded the opportunity to become an intimate friend to prominent Roman citizens and a member of the literary elite in the court of Emperor Trajan.Plutarch's influence and enormous popularity during and after the Renaissance is legendary among classicist. Plutarch's "Lives", served as the sourcebook for Shakespeare's Roman Plays "Julius Caesar", "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Coriolanus". When Hamilton, Jay and Madison write "The Federalist Papers" they use many examples of good and bad leadership traits that they read in Plutarch's work. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history.
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