{"id":3900,"date":"2009-05-06T08:08:12","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T12:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3900"},"modified":"2009-05-06T08:08:12","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T12:08:12","slug":"art-virtue-and-dogs-in-sailor-suits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/art-virtue-and-dogs-in-sailor-suits","title":{"rendered":"Art, virtue, and dogs in sailor suits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine biographies into his work, Plutarch explains what he’s up to! See, each of the Plutarch<\/a>\"\" so far has essentially dived into the biography itself. But with Pericles’ section, Plutarch instead begins by, um, decrying people who love their pets too much:<\/p>\n

Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, I was a little insulted by this. It’s not like I dress Rufus up in a little sailor suit, but he does make a wonderful substitute kid for us, and he’s already lived up to his old man’s dream of being a professional athlete! Still, I get what Caesar was complaining about, even though he had to pass his power on to his nephew, rather than a son.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Plutarch’s point is that our enjoyment of the sensual world is a betrayal of our natural spirit of inquiry, just as fawning over pets is a betrayal of our parental impulses. He goes on to contend that art \u00e2\u20ac\u201d whether it be dyeing, perfuming, music, poetry or sculpture (note that art carried a stronger connotation of artifice than art nowadays does) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d doesn’t enrich the soul \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n

He who busies himself in mean occupations [the aforementioned arts] produces in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good. Nor did any generous and ingenuous young man at the sight of the statue of Jupiter at Pisa ever desire to be a Phidias or on seeing that of Juno at Argos long to be a Polycletus or feel induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish to be an Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus. For it does not necessarily follow that if a piece of work please for its gracefulness therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the way reflecting on virtue does. Hence, writing these paired biographies of noble lives!<\/p>\n

[V]irtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men’s minds as to create at once both admiration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise; we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because I’m all about The Why (and secondarily about The Process), I’m glad Plutarch explored his rationale in this passage, even if my depiction of it makes the Lives sound boring or moralistic. They’re not, and I’m awfully glad I’ve made the time to read them.<\/p>\n

On to Pericles and Fabius Maximus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine biographies into his work, Plutarch explains what he’s up to! See, each of the Plutarch so far has essentially dived into the biography itself. But with Pericles’ section, Plutarch instead begins by, um, decrying people who love their pets too much: Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Art, virtue, and dogs in sailor suits”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[683,654],"class_list":["post-3900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-pericles","tag-plutarch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-10U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2891,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-defense-of-seneca-and-plutarch","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":0},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Defense of Seneca and Plutarch","author":"Gil","date":"November 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"No rambling exegeses this week. Instead, you get a couple of passages from Montaigne. The first comes from his Defense of Seneca and Plutarch: We must not judge what is possible and what is not, according to what is credible and incredible to our sense. . . . It seems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4071,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/we-dance-on-the-strings-of-powers-we-cannot-perceive","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":1},"title":"We dance on the strings of powers we cannot perceive","author":"Gil","date":"June 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"On Monday, I mentioned a passage that intrigued me in Plutarch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life of Coriolanus. I find the Lives in general pretty entertaining (which is why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still reading them: duh) and informative (because I know almost zero about Roman history, while my knowledge of Greek history is awfully spotty). In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3827,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/roman-gods","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":2},"title":"Roman Gods","author":"Gil","date":"April 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm working my way through Plutarch's Lives (or Parallel Lives, if you like). I decided not to challenge myself to blog about it, the way I did with Montaigne, because I didn't like the way that made me rush through some of the essays in an attempt to compress\/distill them.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"montaigne\"","block_context":{"text":"montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679600086","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3969,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-52509","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 5\/25\/09","author":"Gil","date":"May 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Plutarch's Lives of Pericles and Fabius. I had a devil of a time getting into the Pericles section. It's possible I was more distracted than usual, but the prose seemed utterly unwieldy and drowsiness-inducing. Which bums me out, because I expected that sketch to be one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375756760","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3858,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dam-straight","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":4},"title":"Dam, straight.","author":"Gil","date":"April 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I took a half-day, ran some errands, and then got home with plenty of time to work on my post about John Lanchester & the metaphors of risk and finance. Or I could've written up the rest of my notes about last week's Las Vegas trip, and posted the pix\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3565\/3487191962_03ff51f6a2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4634,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-11209-2","url_meta":{"origin":3900,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 11\/2\/09","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons, When The Shooting Stops . . . The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story, by Ralph Rosenblum, and that bio of Timoleon in Plutarch that I read a few months ago. I'm still thinking about the weird modernness of T's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=034551176X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}