Plutarch, His Life, His Lives and His Morals: Four Lectures

by Richard Chenevix Trench (Creator)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Genres: History

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1874

About the author

Richard Chenevix Trench (9 September 1807 – 28 March 1886) was an Anglican archbishop and poet.

Known as Richard Trench until 1873 .

He was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Richard Trench (1774–1860) and the Dublin writer Melesina Chenevix (1768–1827). His elder brother was Francis Chenevix Trench. He went to school at Harrow, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1829. In 1830 he visited Spain. While incumbent of Curdridge Chapel near Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire, he published (1835) The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems, which was favourably received, and was followed in 1838 by Sabbation, Honor Neale, and other Poems, and in 1842 by Poems from Eastern Sources. These volumes revealed the author as the most gifted of the immediate disciples of Wordsworth, with a warmer colouring and more pronounced ecclesiastical sympathies than the master, and strong affinities to Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Keble and Richard Monckton Milnes.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Plutarch – His Life, His Parallel Lives, and His Morals” is a collection of five lectures given by Richard Chenevix Trench, the Archbishop of Dublin. Originally published in 1873 as a collection of four lectures, this second edition improves on that with an additional lecture on Plutarch’s Lives added to the original four. The lectures include one on Plutarch himself, a pair on his “Lives”, and then another pair of lectures on his “Morals”.

There is certainly value in all these lectures, but they also suffer from the bias of the author. It is interesting to note that the Archbishop several times discusses Christianity and Plutarch, in particular in the discussion of “Morals” while Plutarch himself never mentioned Christianity at all. Archbishop Trench seems to feel the need to try to make Plutarch an honorary Christian in his presentation.

If one filters out the Christianity discussion, there is some good material here. The lectures and the book as a whole is a fairly quick read, and it provides some insight into Plutarch as well as Plutarch’s two very significant collections of works. I am not suggesting that one should not read this book due to the author’s bias, but read it with an understanding of the position of the author. The fact is that for most of the content of these lectures the religious bias of the author is not a factor, and even where it comes into play it doesn’t mean that the author’s information is invalid.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice short little thing; the main point for me was that Trench brings up all the same things I got out of reading the actual Lives, which tells me that I'm not the only one who thinks what I think of it.