We extol Plutarch of Chaeronea as the most high minded of biographers. Slender, character driven, readable, his Parallel Lives (paired biographies of Greek and Roman heroes) inspire us to embrace virtue and abhor vice. They have made his name immortal, which is all to the good, given that his other works include On Praising Oneself Inoffensively, Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer and Why God Is Slow to Take Revenge. Plutarch’s secret? “The fact is, I’m writing biography, not history.”
Alas, our age has reversed this formula; one contemplates uneasily what Gore Vidal called the “Wastebasket School” of all-inclusive 1,000-page biographies; one grieves for one’s own life’s inadequacy and lack of proper documentation. Meanwhile, for readers, virtue and vice go by the board. Except in Canada. Emphasizing virtue, Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians series is giving us 17 Plutarch-length heroes: Emily Carr, Lester Pearson, Norman...
Jack Mitchell is a poet and novelist. His latest book is D, or 500 Aphorisms, Maxims, & Reflections (2017). He is an associate professor of classics at Dalhousie University.
Advertisement
Advertisement