Brill's companion to the reception of Plutarch

by Sophia A. Xenophontos (Editor)

Other authorsAikaterini Oikonomopoulou (Editor)

Ebook, 2019

Status

Available

Call number

480

Genres

Classics

Fiction

Collection

Ebook

Publication

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019]

Description

The Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-125 AD) makes a fascinating case-study for reception studies not least because of his uniquely extensive and diverse afterlife. Brill ?s Companion to the Reception of Plutarch offers the first comprehensive analysis of Plutarch ?s rich reception history from the Roman Imperial period through Late Antiquity and Byzantium to the Renaissance, Enlightenment and the modern era. The thirty-seven chapters that make up this volume, written by a remarkable line-up of experts, explore the appreciation, contestation and creative appropriation of Plutarch himself, his thought and work in the history of literature across various cultures and intellectual traditions in Europe, America, North Africa, and the Middle East.… (more)

Media reviews

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

This new companion to the reception of Plutarch is most welcome. The breadth of coverage in its thirty-seven chapters is unprecedented. Partial comparison can be made to the seven chapters on reception in the 2014 A Companion to Plutarch, edited by Mark Beck, which are mostly on reception in

western Europe. The depth of coverage is likewise unprecedented, for which it is all but required to have such a team of scholars to achieve this. By comparison, Rudolf Hirzel, in his Plutarch (1912), part of the Das Erbe der Alten series, covered the nearly two millennia of reception in a mere 133 pages. The thirty-seven scholars here, most of whom are specialists on their respective chapters, fill over fives times that number of pages. Of particular note is the attention to middle and late Byzantine authors, an era covered by Hirzel in four pages, here taking up 180 pages, a particular strength of the current volume, as noted by the editors (5). Some chapters are more synoptic, some more illustrative, some more engaging, but, as a set, the editors deserve praise for achieving their goal “to encourage further research” (6) in the reception of Plutarch.

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