5 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2024
    1. The Atlantic. Review of Plutarch’s Lives, by Arthur Hugh Clough, John Dryden, and Plutarch. January 1860. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1860/01/plutarchs-lives/627616/

      Some excellent quotes and evidence for the importance of Plutarch's Lives, almost more so than the importance of this particular translation.

    2. The book is interesting from Dryden’s connection with it, but still more so — considering how slight that connection was, his only contribution to it being the Life of Plutarch—from the fact, that the translations of some of the Lives were made by famous men, as that of Alcibiades by Lord Chancellor Somers, and that of Alexander by the excellent John Evelyn ; while others were made by men who, if not famous, are at least well remembered by the lovers of the literature of the time,—as that of Numa by Sir Paul Rycaut, the Turkey merchant, and the continuer of Dr. Johnson's favorite history of the Turks,—that of Otho by Pope’s friend, the medical poet, Dr. Garth,—that of Solon by Creech, the translator of Lucretius,—that of Lysander by the Honorable Charles Boyle, whose name is preserved in the alcohol of Bentley's classical satire, — and that of Themistocles by Edward, the son of Sir Thomas Browne.

      Dryden didn't translate Plutarch himself, but edited it and relied on translation by others, including his friends and acquaintances.

    1. his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word 'biography' to English readers;

      via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden

      John Dryden apparently coined the English word 'biography' in his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives.

      Does the OED bear this out?

  2. Sep 2023