Plutarch’s Parallel Lives

19 Dec, 2024 880 Classical and modern Greek literatures

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work ‘Parallel Lives’ which has shaped the way successive generations see the Classical world. Plutarch was clear that he was writing lives, not histories, and he wrote these very focussed accounts in pairs to contrast and compare the characters of famous Greeks and Romans, side by side, along with their virtues and vices. This focus on the inner lives of great men was to fascinate Shakespeare, who drew on Plutarch considerably when writing his Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens and Antony and Cleopatra. While few followed his approach of setting lives in pairs, Plutarch’s work was to influence countless biographers especially from the Enlightenment onwards.

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Guests

  • Judith Mossman No other episodes
    Professor Emerita of Classics at Coventry University
  • Andrew Erskine No other episodes
    Professor of Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh
  • Paul Cartledge 22 episodes
    AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Reading list

  • A Companion to Plutarch
    Mark Beck (ed.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) Google Books →
  • Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity
    Colin Burrow (Oxford University Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • Theater and Politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives
    Raphaela Dubreuil (Brill, 2023) Google Books →
  • Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice
    Tim Duff (Oxford University Press, 1999) Google Books →
  • Plutarch's Lives: Parallelism and Purpose
    Noreen Humble (ed.) (Classical Press of Wales, 2010) Google Books →
  • Plutarch
    Robert Lamberton (Yale University Press, 2002) Google Books →
  • Plutarch's Politics: Between City and Empire
    Hugh Liebert (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Google Books →
  • Plutarch and History
    Christopher Pelling (Classical Press of Wales, 2002) Google Books →
  • Greek Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield) (Oxford University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Roman Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield) (Oxford University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Hellenistic Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield) (Oxford University Press, 2016) Google Books →
  • The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert) (Penguin, 2023) Google Books →
  • The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert) (Penguin, 2011) Google Books →
  • On Sparta
    Plutarch (trans. Richard Talbert) (Penguin, 2005) Google Books →
  • The Rise of Rome
    Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling) (Penguin, 2013) Google Books →
  • Rome in Crisis: Nine Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Christopher Pelling) (Penguin, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives
    Plutarch (trans. Rex Warner) (Penguin, 2006) Google Books →
  • The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
    Plutarch (trans. Thomas North, ed. Judith Mossman) (Wordsworth, 1998) Google Books →
  • Plutarch
    Geert Roskam (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Google Books →
  • Plutarch
    D. A. Russell (Bristol Classical Press, 2001) Google Books →
  • Plutarch and his Roman Readers
    Philip A. Stadter (Oxford University Press, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch
    Frances B. Titchener and Alexei V. Zadorojnyi (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

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Programme ID: m00260s5

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00260s5

Auto-category: 880 (Hellenic literatures; Classical Greek)