Plutarch's Lives

[Michelle in AL]

OK all, I'm trying to slog through Theseus in Plutarch's Lives. I'm getting the same reaction to this book as I did when I first tried to read The Histories of Herodotus. I loved Histories after I got the Landmark version.

 

I've looked Plutarch's Lives up in the archives and it's on many's favorites list here. I just can't seem to keep all the people and places straight to make sense of it. I have to stop and reread and definitely can't read it if I'm tired.

 

Anyone else have a hard time with this? Did your kids have a hard time? I'm reading the Dryden translation edited by Clough. For those of you who did Omnibus, did your kids say "enough!" after reading Histories and then this?

[Laura K (NC)]

In SWB's History of the Ancient World she quoted and drew from Plutarch's lives throughout the book, so I plan on using the work sort of like a supplemental reference material instead of literature. So when my son gets to Alexander (Chapter 70 of her book) we'll read that life, and I need to read through to pick maybe two others that correspond to the chapters and don't do a lot of name-dropping, which I think can get too tedious in a program meant as a survey class. History of the Ancient World helps a lot with putting these characters in their context so some of the names/situations are more familiar. I won't have my son read through the whole thing.

[Jenn in CA]

It might help to know that Omnibus only has you read 8 of the lives... also, they are studied in pairs contrasting the two people (as Plutarch intended). My kids enjoyed them.

 

I've been reading a children's version w/my 8yo and we keep a chart/list of the different names & events as we read them, and that helps a lot.

[SusanAR]

Jenn, would you mind listing the lives that aare paired?

 

Thank you

[Jenn in CA]

Basically it's the first 8 lives in the book (if your volume is Greek & Roman lives combined, not split):

 

Theseus & Romulus

Lycurgus & Numa Pompilius

Solon & Poplicola

Themistocles & Camillus

 

Plutarch also wrote comparisons between them all (except the last in the list; it's been lost), and those are very enlightening to read. (Plutarch was biased toward the Greeks.) The last writing ex. in Omnibus is to write your own comparison between Them & Cam.

 

I felt the Omnibus unit was a fabulous study of Plutarch without reading the whole thing, although some of the others are very interesting as well (I believe his bio of Cleopatra is the only one we have written during her lifetime).

[Carmen_and_Company]

We followed the AO listings since 7th grade with my eldest.

 

Here's a link with a schedule, linked texts, and parent made guides for studying 6 lives per year as a portion of a citizenship grade:

 

http://amblesideonline.org/PlutarchSch.shtml

[Michelle in AL]

Thanks all for your replies. Carmen your AO link really helped me, especially the part about just trying to get the main plot of the story and not paying too much attention to names and details. I am picking up the main plot as I go, so maybe I'm doing OK with it after all. I also like the point of stopping occasionally when reading with students to have them narrate it back to you, so you can be sure they're getting the plot sequence too.

[SusanAR]

Thanks, Jenn, and others as well:001_smile:

 

Susan

[Peela]

I hadn't thought about it before, but this is why I like having my very own kids to read aloud to.

We literally just finished Theseus, the same edition as the OP. It was our first Plutarch story. I could not have read that to myself, I would have died of boredom and fallen asleep within minutes! But reading it aloud to my kids over 9 weeks was fine, they never complained once, we all got something out of it...still pretty dry but we had some good converations over it.

On the Ambleside website it says (something like) not to worry too much about the names and places and just keep going with the flow of it. I did that, and I was surprised how much the kids actually understood what was going on. They have good narrations. (Maybe better than I could have!).

That's why I love homeschooling. I get exposed to things I would never normally push myself to read.

We are going to do a Roman life next term.