Plutarch in English, 1528–1603. Volume One: Essays : Volume 1: Essays
- Submitting institution
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The University of Manchester
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 173039184
- Type
- R - Scholarly edition
- DOI
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10.2307/j.ctv1b3qqph
- Title of edition
- Plutarch in English, 1528–1603. Volume One: Essays
- Publisher
- Modern Humanities Research Association
- ISBN
- 978-0-947623-86-9
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- December
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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2
- Research group(s)
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A - SALC
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This two-volume scholarly edition (c. 750 pages) constitutes the first major study of the reception of one of the most widely read and influential classical authors in Renaissance England, Plutarch. It comprises translations of nine of the most popular Essays and Lives in early modern England, by major authors including Wyatt and Elyot and lesser-known figures such as Morley, whose manuscript version of Aemilius Paullus appears here in print for the first time. All have been carefully edited from original copies of the manuscripts and first printed editions and collated with later editions, with variants recorded in the textual notes. The detailed commentaries on the texts are based on a comprehensive study of Greek, Latin, and French editions of Plutarch’s works and trace how translators drew on, and departed from, their sources. Comprehensive introductions to each of the nine translations (comprising c. 150 pages in total) analyse source editions, translation methods, and the impact of Plutarch’s individual works on English Renaissance literature and culture and include major scholarly discoveries, such as North’s use of the Latin edition of Cruser. The c. 100-page General Introduction locates these nine translations in the context of Plutarch’s wider influence and demonstrates how his reception transformed the literary culture of early modern England. It innovatively argues that Plutarch became a model for a new role for writers within society, as counsellors to the governing elite; that his works were instrumental in the formation of a system of literary production and consumption centred on the commonplace-book and generated new literary forms such as the essay; and that Plutarch’s works shaped the theory and practice of exemplarity, which was central to the reception of classical antiquity and formed the basis for moral and political action and ideology, particularly in Shakespeare’s Roman plays, based on North’s English Lives.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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