| Popis: |
This chapter studies Plutarch’s On the Malice of Herodotus, in particular its framing and hermeneutic principles, and further explores ideas of ethical authorship introduced earlier in the book. It argues that Plutarch’s treatise should be contextualized within the broader weave of Plutarchan ideas on mimesis and ethos and that the Malice functions as a work of quasi-biography, of a piece with Plutarch’s Lives. Plutarch prods readers to evaluate Herodotus’s character, discernible through actions both textual and biographic, as they might judge historical figures. The chapter demonstrates that the treatise partakes of many of Plutarch’s recurrent concerns: ethical legibility, the authority of the past, and the educative capacity of literature. Plutarch’s intervention plays to his own self-presentation, making Herodotus a foil for a notion of responsible authorship. |
