I am so glad to see so many people eagerly awaiting Plutarch because he's somebody you really want to have read, even if only for a month, then you can decide for yourself if you enjoyed him or not. You'll never forget him, I can tell you that.
Reading Plutarch is, to me, as JoanR said here, addictive: once you read a little you're hooked and reading a lot and it's also important to cast your own cynical eye on it too. He's unique I think, and his voice is so memorable. But which voice? This is going to be like the Odyssey: choose the one which YOU like best.
Dana, Dryden? Hopefully it's not in verse? I'd look out another translation, giving Dryden the credit, all the credit and more he's due, I can't imagine Plutarch in rhyming couplets. Does it?
No wonder you're not enamored.
Everybody, choose a translator whose style you like, just like we did for The Odyssey. Let's see how many are online, Frybabe has found the Clough and Stewart and Long. That's just one source.
Don't anybody BUY a volume till we've decided what sections you want to read. You need to know that, for instance, if we're reading Brutus, he's in more than one section, and don't let that put you off.
I would say we should compare, for instance what Shakespeare did with the same people but there's really no use, when you read, for instance, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, you're reading Plutarch, he took the stuff almost verbatim.
For my part, in doing my own assignment, to help select passages, we must decide who and what to read, because he's like the World Book was (an encyclopedia here in the States) which was...(was it?) primarily for children, sold door to door (remember that?) Lots and lots and lots of photos and illustrations, you'd start to read one and get hooked and you'd be off reading another and another, Plutarch is like that.
Ok here are some suggestions, this by Babi gave me a lot of pause: Demosthenes and Cicero
Now THERE'S a combination, why are THEY compared? What, quick, quick, write down what you know about either in two columns. What have you got? Marbles? What else? Be honest!
I can't FIND my Plutarch!!! I've had it 50 years and it's a beautiful volume, I must read it if we're going to read but where IS it? Whose translation is it? It's not where it belongs, I shall tear the bookshelves (now lamentably double shelved) apart.
So till I find it here is what I suggest, do any of these topics entice at all?
Oh Joan R said: I also found in the library a useful book on Plutarch and his life and work by D.A. Russell which gives, it seems, a pretty good picture of the times in which Plutarch lived.
Ok we need that desperately. We also need for our readers to bring us stuff here about the backgrounds of the people involved. A "tidbit" if you will, not a link to an 800 page article but a tidbit, you get to be Plutarch like, see what YOU think is interesting.
Roshannarose mentioned a new interest in the "First Triumvirate." Just about every night on TV there is a commercial with...who ARE those Romans? There are three, Cassius? Brutus? I can't read the third. It's a joke, is it an ad for imeet or something?
Wouldn't it be nice to have the real skinny on who these people are? On the "First Triumvirate?" Maybe not Plutarch's skinny but an overview and then how he presents them? Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Crassus, Antony, Cleopatra, Cicero, Augustus: all of this period and time.
A new movie by George Clooney is called The Ides of March, wouldn't it be nice to have the background from the POV of the best sources of the day?
We'll need everybody to bring to the table a nugget or two or three, about the subjects at hand.
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Here are some beginning suggestions, lacking my own BOOK!
Week I: (1) The death of Pompey and what led up to it.
This will encompass as background the "First Triumvirate," the assassination of Caesar, what to do with Crassus? Crassus in his golden armor, a modern day Gordon Gekko in every sense of the word. Do things never change? Here was the richest man in the world, one of the three running the Roman Empire (the so called "First Triumvirate), so he held the highest political office in the land, what more could anybody want?
He wanted to be a victorious general in battle.
Quick quick, what was his most famous conquest? Don't look it up!
Then he had himself a suit of golden armor made and set out for the East. His end is surely memorable but too long and involved for our purposes. The Pompey section would touch on Marc Antony also. Also includes Ptolemy.
Week II:
(2) Antony and Cleopatra (3) possibly Caesar's death. I think the Cassius selection is too long. Maybe Brutus in his tent.
Weeks III and IV: up for grabs, who do you like?:
The OCCL says the following are noteworthy:
the historical passages:
1. the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
2 Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder (Week I)
3. the death of the younger Cato
4. the suicide of Otho
Battle pieces:
Marius over the Cimbri
The victory of the Corinthian Timoleon over the Carthaginians at Crimisus (would tie in nicely with Gaddafi)
The siege of Syracuse (when Archimedes was there)
The happy state of Italy under Numa
Sicily pacified by Timoleon
Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony (Week II)
Alcibiades
Babi mentions Demosthenes and Cicero. I must find out if the deaths of both are covered, we might want to really get into that.
Lets pick two more weeks worth? You to decide or throw out the first two if you like and suggest there too, they are only suggestions, and see if we can get manageable pieces. Then we will need to limit the readings to something doable in a week.
We really ARE going to need all hands on deck with the background information. It will be a pot luck supper, nobody wants to come without at least one dish, but everybody wins, at the end. We shall be replete with knowledge the next time a Caesar reference comes to the theater or the television.
Yippee!! You don't want to be in the position of having missed Plutarch! Now's our chance, great pick!
