Plutarch S Unexpected Silences

This book examines passages in Plutarch’s works that foil expectations and whose silence invites closer examination. The contributors question omissions of authors, works, people, and places, and they examine Plutarch’s reticence to comment where he usually would.

Plutarch is one of the most prolific and important writers from antiquity. His Parallel Lives continue to be an invaluable historical source, and the numerous essays in his Moralia, covering everything from marriage to the Delphic Oracle, are crucial evidence for ancient philosophy and cultural history. This volume provides an engaging introduction to all aspects of his work, including his method and purpose in writing the Lives, his attitudes toward daily life and intimate relations, his thoughts on citizenship and government, his relationship to Plato and the second Sophistic, and his conception of foreign or 'other'. Attention is also paid to his style and rhetoric. Plutarch's works have also been important in subsequent periods, and an introduction to their reception history in Byzantium, Italy, England, Spain, and France is provided. A distinguished team of contributors together helps the reader begin to navigate this most varied and fascinating of writers.

This is the first comprehensive commentary on the Athenaion Politeia since that of J.E. Sandys in 1912. The Introduction discusses the history of the text; the contents, purpose, and sources of the work; its language and style; its date, and the evidence for revision after the completion of the original version; and the place of the work in the Aristotelian school. The Commentary concentrates on the historical and institutional facts which the work sets out to give, their sources, and their relation to other accounts. Textual and linguistic questions are also addressed.

Plato’s dialogue Cratylus focuses on being and human dependence on words, or the essential truths about the human condition. Arguing that comedy is an essential part of Plato's concept of language, S. Montgomery Ewegen asserts that understanding the comedic is key to an understanding of Plato's deeper philosophical intentions. Ewegen shows how Plato’s view of language is bound to comedy through words and how, for Plato, philosophy has much in common with playfulness and the ridiculous. By tying words, language, and our often uneasy relationship with them to comedy, Ewegen frames a new reading of this notable Platonic dialogue.

This extract from the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible provides Prinslo’s introduction to and concise commentary on Psalms. The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible presents, in nontechnical language, the best of modern scholarship on each book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Reader-friendly commentary complements succinct summaries of each section of the text and will be valuable to scholars, students, and general readers. Rather than attempt a verse-by-verse analysis, these volumes work from larger sense units, highlighting the place of each passage within the overarching biblical story. Commentators focus on the genre of each text—parable, prophetic oracle, legal code, and so on—interpreting within the historical and literary context. The volumes also address major issues within each biblical book—including the range of possible interpretations—and refer readers to the best resources for further discussions.

In the Parallel Lives Plutarch does not absolve his readers of the need for moral reflection by offering any sort of hard and fast rules for their moral judgement. Rather, he uses strategies to elicit readers’ active engagement with the act of judging. This book, drawing on the insights of recent narrative theories, especially narratology and reader-response criticism, examines Plutarch’s narrative techniques in the Parallel Lives of drawing his readers into the process of moral evaluation and exposing them to the complexities entailed in it. Subjects discussed include Plutarch’s prefatory projection of himself and his readers and the interaction between the two; Plutarch’s presentation of the mental and emotional workings of historical agents, which serves to re-enact the participants’ experience at the time and thus arouse empathy in the readers; Plutarch’s closural strategies and their profound effects on the readers’ moral inquiry; Plutarch’s principles of historical criticism in On the malice of Herodotus in relation to his narrative strategies in the Lives. Through illustrating Plutarch’s narrative technique, this book elucidates Plutarch’s praise-and-blame rhetoric in the Lives as well as his sensibility to the challenges inherent in recounting, reading about, and evaluating the lives of the great men of history.

A Companion to Plutarch offers a broad survey of the famoushistorian and biographer; a coherent, comprehensive, and elegantpresentation of Plutarch’s thought and influence Constitutes the first survey of its kind, a unified andaccessible guide that offers a comprehensive discussion of allmajor aspects of Plutarch’s oeuvre Provides essential background information on Plutarch’sworld, including his own circle of influential friends (Greek andRoman), his travels, his political activity, and his relations withTrajan and other emperors Offers contextualizing background, the literary and culturaldetails that shed light on some of the fundamental aspects ofPlutarch’s thought Surveys the ideologically crucial reception of the GreekClassical Period in Plutarch’s writings Follows the currents of recent serious scholarship, discussingperennial interests, and delving into topics and works not formerlygiven serious attention

The 15 papers in this volume, delivered to an international conference held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in the Fall of 2001, offer a systematic investigation into Polybius's many critiques and attempt to assess their potentially distortive effects.