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Plotting Terror: Novelists and Terrorists in Contemporary Fiction
by Margaret ScanlanIs literature dangerous? In the romantic view, writers were rebels--Shelley's "unacknowledged legislators of mankind"--poised to change the world. In relation to twentieth-century literature, however, such a view becomes suspect. By looking at a range of novels about terrorism, Plotting Terror raises the possibility that the writer's relationship to actual politics may be considerably reduced in the age of television and the Internet.Margaret Scanlan traces the figure of the writer as rival or double of the terrorist from its origins in the romantic conviction of the writer's originality and power through a century of political, social, and technological developments that undermine that belief. She argues that serious writers like Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Doris Lessing, and Don DeLillo imagine a contemporary writer's encounter with terrorists as a test of the old alliance between writer and revolutionary.After considering the possibility that televised terrorism is replacing the novel, or that writing, as contemporary theory would have it, is itself a form of violence, Scanlan asks whether the revolutionary impulse itself is dying--in politics as much as in literature. Her analyses take the reader on a fascinating exploration of the relationship between actual bombs and stories about bombings, from the modern world to its electronic representation, and from the exercise of political power to the fiction writer's power in the world.
Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots
by William CookA classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal theory--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--painstakingly diagrammed through hundreds of situations and scenarios A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--but Cook takes his "Plottoist" through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader's hand through a dizzying array of "purposes" and "obstacles." The method is broken down into three stages: 1. The Master Plot 2. The Conflict Situation 3. Character Combinations In the first stage, Cook demonstrates that "a character with particular traits . . . finds himself in a situation . . . and this is how it turns out." Following this, each Master Plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among twenty different Conflict Groups (these range from "Love's Beginning," to "Personal Limitations," to "Transgression"). Finally, in Character Combinations, Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists for what serves as an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots
by William CookA classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal theory--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--painstakingly diagrammed through hundreds of situations and scenarios A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--but Cook takes his "Plottoist" through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader's hand through a dizzying array of "purposes" and "obstacles." The method is broken down into three stages: 1. The Master Plot 2. The Conflict Situation 3. Character Combinations In the first stage, Cook demonstrates that "a character with particular traits . . . finds himself in a situation . . . and this is how it turns out." Following this, each Master Plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among twenty different Conflict Groups (these range from "Love's Beginning," to "Personal Limitations," to "Transgression"). Finally, in Character Combinations, Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists for what serves as an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots
by William CookA classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal theory--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--painstakingly diagrammed through hundreds of situations and scenarios A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--but Cook takes his "Plottoist" through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader's hand through a dizzying array of "purposes" and "obstacles." The method is broken down into three stages: 1. The Master Plot 2. The Conflict Situation 3. Character Combinations In the first stage, Cook demonstrates that "a character with particular traits . . . finds himself in a situation . . . and this is how it turns out." Following this, each Master Plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among twenty different Conflict Groups (these range from "Love's Beginning," to "Personal Limitations," to "Transgression"). Finally, in Character Combinations, Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists for what serves as an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
Plotto
by William Wallace CookA classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple - "Purpose opposed by Obstacle yields Conflict" - but Cook takes his "Plottoist" through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader's hand as a dizzying array of purposes and obstacles come to a head. Cook's method is broken down into three stages: First, the master plot. This four-page chart distills the most basic plot points into a three-line sentence. Next, the conflict situation. Each master plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among 20 different conflict groups (these range from "Love's Beginning" to "Personal Limitations" to "Transgression"). There are over 2,000 unique conflict situations in the book, and each is cross-referenced with designs for how the situation might have started, or where it might go. Finally, there are character combinations - Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists, each cross-referenced with various supporting players - themselves tied to various conflict situations, for what appears to be an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
The Plowman's Tale: The c. 1532 and 1606 Editions of a Spurious Canterbury Tale (Routledge Revivals)
by Mary Rhinelander McCarlPublished in 1997: An edition of the literary virus that inserted itself into the Canterbury Tales and passed as authentic until the late 19th century. The virulent attack on the clergy made possible the Renaissance conception of Chaucer as a pre-Protestant English patriot.
Plowswords: Literature and the Agricultural Trap from Shakespeare to Coetzee
by Cates BaldridgeA critical examination of the &‘agricultural trap&’ in literature For thousands of years, agriculture and civilization were essentially synonymous. The superiority of farming over the unsettled, itinerant life of hunting and gathering appeared, to many, self-evident. Only recently has the field of anthropology challenged this assumption by positing that foragers were, and are, actually happier and healthier than people living in agro-cultures. Plowswords is the first work to consider the refiguring of the agricultural revolution into the agricultural trap through a literary lens. Reading texts that depict farmers in conflict with foragers, Cates Baldridge argues that agricultural ideology justified the tedium and toil of farming by enlisting a rhetorical foil: the &“savage&” and &“backward&” hunter-gatherer. Texts such as The Tempest, Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Heart of Darkness, and the novels of J. M. Coetzee use this figure either to exalt farming&’s triumph over foraging or to mourn the consequences of the agricultural turn, anxiously championing or stridently challenging the received wisdom of humanity&’s supposed progress.
The Ploy of Instinct: Victorian Sciences of Nature and Sexuality in Liberal Governance (Forms of Living)
by Kathleen FredericksonIt is paradoxical that instinct became a central term for late Victorian sexual sciences as they were elaborated in the medicalized spaces of confession and introspection, given that instinct had long been defined in its opposition to self-conscious thought. The Ploy of Instinct ties this paradox to instinct’s deployment in conceptualizing governmentality.Instinct’s domain, Frederickson argues, extended well beyond the women, workers, and “savages” to whom it was so often ascribed. The concept of instinct helped to gloss over contradictions in British liberal ideology made palpable as turn-of-the-century writers grappled with the legacy of Enlightenment humanism. For elite European men, instinct became both an agent of “progress” and a force that, in contrast to desire, offered a plenitude in answer to the alienation of self-consciousness.This shift in instinct’s appeal to privileged European men modified the governmentality of empire, labor, and gender. The book traces these changes through parliamentary papers, pornographic fiction, accounts of Aboriginal Australians, suffragette memoirs, and scientific texts in evolutionary theory, sexology, and early psychoanalysis.
The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei, Volume One: The Gathering (Princeton Library of Asian Translations #56)
by David Tod RoyThe first volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novelThis is the first volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch’ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context.With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.
Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two Memoirs About Courtesans (Translations from the Asian Classics)
by Xiang Mao Huai YuAmid the turmoil of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition in seventeenth-century China, some intellectuals sought refuge in romantic memories from what they perceived as cataclysmic events. This volume presents two memoirs by famous men of letters, Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent by Mao Xiang (1611–93) and Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge by Yu Huai (1616–96), that recall times spent with courtesans. They evoke the courtesan world in the final decades of the Ming dynasty and the aftermath of its collapse.Mao Xiang chronicles his relationship with the courtesan Dong Bai, who became his concubine two years before the Ming dynasty fell. His mournful remembrance of their life together, written shortly after her early death, includes harrowing descriptions of their wartime sufferings as well as idyllic depictions of romantic bliss. Yu Huai offers a group portrait of Nanjing courtesans, mixing personal memories with reported anecdotes. Writing fifty years after the fall of the Ming, he expresses a deep nostalgia for courtesan culture that bears the toll of individual loss and national calamity. Together, they shed light on the sensibilities of late Ming intellectuals: their recollections of refined pleasures and ruminations on the vagaries of memory coexist with political engagement and a belief in bearing witness. With an introduction and extensive annotations, Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge is a valuable source for the literature of remembrance, the representation of women, and the social role of intellectuals during a tumultuous period in Chinese history.
Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galápagos Islands
by Michael D'OrsoMention the Galápagos Islands to almost anyone, and the first things that spring to mind are iguanas, tortoises, volcanic beaches, and, of course, Charles Darwin. But there are people living there, too -- nearly 20,000 of them. A wild stew of nomads and grifters, dreamers and hermits, wealthy tour operators and desperately poor South American refugees, these inhabitants have brought crime, crowding, poaching, and pollution to the once-idyllic islands. In Plundering Paradise, Michael D'Orso explores the conflicts on land and at sea that now threaten to destroy this fabled "Eden of Evolution."
The Plural of Us: Poetry and Community in Auden and Others
by Bonnie CostelloThe Plural of Us is the first book to focus on the poet’s use of the first-person plural voice—poetry’s “we.” Closely exploring the work of W. H. Auden, Bonnie Costello uncovers the trove of thought and feeling carried in this small word. While lyric has long been associated with inwardness and a voice saying “I,” “we” has hardly been noticed, even though it has appeared throughout the history of poetry. Reading for this pronoun in its variety and ambiguity, Costello explores the communal function of poetry—the reasons, risks, and rewards of the first-person plural.Costello adopts a taxonomic approach to her subject, considering “we” from its most constricted to its fully unbounded forms. She also takes a historical perspective, following Auden’s interest in the full range of “the human pluralities” in a time of particular pressure for and against the collective. Costello offers new readings as she tracks his changing approach to voice in democracy. Examples from many other poets—including Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, and Wallace Stevens—arise throughout the book, and the final chapter offers a consideration of how contemporary writers find form for what George Oppen called “the meaning of being numerous.”Connecting insights to philosophy of language and to recent work in concepts of community, The Plural of Us shows how poetry raises vital questions—literary and social—about how we speak of our togetherness.
Pluralism, Poetry, and Literacy: A Test of Reading and Interpretive Techniques (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)
by Xavier KalckDrawing from Medieval and Renaissance studies, analytic philosophy and pragmatism, Jewish studies, as well as ecocriticism and environmental humanities, this book demonstrates the consistent relationship between pluralism and literacy through the prism of poetry by confronting the history of interpretive practices with examples from American poets Robert Lax, Larry Eigner, Louis Zukofsky, Gary Snyder and Theodore Enslin. Divided into four areas of investigation—the meditative, the analytic, the diasporic and the ecological reader—it is an invitation to turn to premodern reading practices related to spiritual exercises as well as modern reading practices devoted to the critical pursuit of analytical knowledge. This study further reflects on the textual models of Jewish diaspora as another form of dialog between sacred and secular interpretive practices, before examining a final variation on this distinction by looking at the separation between contemplative and investigative perspectives on reading and writing nature.
The Pluralist Imagination from East to West in American Literature
by Julianne NewmarkThe first three decades of the twentieth century saw the largest period of immigration in U.S. history. This immigration, however, was accompanied by legal segregation, racial exclusionism, and questions of residents’ national loyalty and commitment to a shared set of “American” beliefs and identity. The faulty premise that homogeneity—as the symbol of the “melting pot”—was the mark of a strong nation underlined nativist beliefs while undercutting the rich diversity of cultures and lifeways of the population. Though many authors of the time have been viewed through this nativist lens, several texts do indeed contain an array of pluralist themes of society and culture that contradict nativist orientations. In The Pluralist Imagination from East to West in American Literature, Julianne Newmark brings urban northeastern, western, southwestern, and Native American literature into debates about pluralism and national belonging and thereby uncovers new concepts of American identity based on sociohistorical environments. Newmark explores themes of plurality and place as a reaction to nativism in the writings of Louis Adamic, Konrad Bercovici, Abraham Cahan, Willa Cather, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Alexander Eastman, James Weldon Johnson, D. H. Lawrence, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Zitkala-Ša, among others. This exploration of the connection between concepts of place and pluralist communities reveals how mutual experiences of place can offer more constructive forms of community than just discussions of nationalism, belonging, and borders.
Plurality and the Poetics of Self
by Bruce BondPlurality and the Poetics of Self investigates the words “I” and “self” as suggestive of eight territories of meaning. Via poetry’s lens into language and its limits, Bruce Bond explores the notion of self as identity, volitional agent, ego, existential monad, subjectivity, ontological origin, soul, and transpersonal psyche. Taking poetic meaning as our common currency, the book emphasizes the critical role of the un-representable and how embattled and confused assumptions threaten ever deeper alienation from one another and ourselves.
Pluricentric Languages and Language Education: Pedagogical Implications and Innovative Approaches to Language Teaching (Routledge Research in Language Education)
by Marcus Callies Stefanie HehnerThis book maps out the pedagogical implications of the global spread and diversification of pluricentric languages for language education and showcases new approaches that can take account of linguistic diversity. Moving the discussion of contemporary norms, aims, and approaches to pluricentric languages in language education beyond English, this book provides a multilingual, comparative perspective through case study examples of Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, and Vietnamese. The chapters document, compare, and evaluate existing practices in the teaching of pluricentric languages, and highlights different pedagogical approaches that embrace their variability and diversity. Presenting approaches to overcome barriers to innovation in language education, the book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, doctoral students in the field of language education, as well as socio- and applied linguists. Practitioners interested in linguistic diversity more broadly will also find this book engaging.
The Pluricentricity Debate: On Austrian German and other Germanic Standard Varieties (Routledge Focus on Linguistics)
by Stefan DollingerThis book unpacks a 30-year debate about the pluricentricity of German. It examines the concept of pluricentricity, an idea implicit to the study of World Englishes, which expressly allows for national standard varieties, and the notion of "pluri-areality," which seeks to challenge the former. Looking at the debate from three angles – methodological, theoretical, and epistemological – the volume draws on data from German and English, with additional perspectives from Dutch, Luxembourgish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, to establish if and to what degree "pluri-areality" and pluricentricity model various sociolinguistic situations adequately. Dollinger argues that "pluri-areality" is synonymous with "geographical variation" and, as such, no match for pluricentricity. Instead, "pluri-areality" presupposes an atheoretical, supposedly "neutral", data-driven linguistics that violates basic science-theoretical principles. Three fail-safes are suggested – the uniformitarian hypothesis, Popper’s theory of falsification and speaker attitudes – to avoid philological incompatibilities and terminological clutter. This book is of particular interest to scholars in sociolinguistics, World Englishes, Germanic languages and linguists more generally.
Plurilingual Education Policy in Early Childhood Education and Care: Aiming Towards More Equal Opportunities in Luxembourg
by Kevin Simoes LoureiroThis book explores the implementation of educational policies aimed at addressing educational inequalities and specifically focuses on Luxembourg’s pioneering plurilingual education policy in non-formal early childhood education and care. It emphasizes the significance of developing plurilingual policies that accommodate diverse linguistic and organizational contexts, ensuring more effective implementation and equitable educational opportunities for all children. Through an in-depth analysis, this book provides insights into various aspects of policy implementation. It delves into the drivers and goals of the plurilingual policy, the measures taken to implement it, the challenges encountered, and the success factors identified at the policy level. Additionally, it examines the attitudes, intentions and obstacles faced by those involved at the practice level. Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks and empirical studies, the book presents multiple perspectives on the subject. By employing a mixed-methods design, including policy document analysis of the plurilingual education program, expert interviews with policy-level stakeholders and a cross-sectional survey of early childhood practitioners in the non-formal education sector, this work offers a multifaceted approach. The book not only enhances the understanding of policy implementation processes, but also sheds light on the practical implications and potential for reducing educational inequalities in multilingual educational settings. The findings and discussions in this book are, thus, pertinent not only to Luxembourg, but also offer policy- and practice-related implications for similar educational contexts globally.
Plurilingual Pedagogies: Critical and Creative Endeavors for Equitable Language in Education (Educational Linguistics #42)
by Sunny Man Chu Lau Saskia Van ViegenThis book critically engages with theoretical shifts marked by the ‘multilingual turn’ in applied linguistics, and articulates the complexities associated with naming and engaging with the everyday language practices of bi/multilingual communities. It discusses methodological approaches that enable researchers and educators to observe and interact with these communities and to understand their teaching and learning needs. It also highlights pedagogical approaches and instructional strategies involved with learning and teaching language and/or content curriculum to students across various learning and educational contexts. The book addresses recent debates on the multi/plural turn in applied linguistics and articulates the limitations of these debates - particularly the absence of discussion of social power relations and contexts in applying different theoretical lenses. It features empirical research from primarily North American classrooms to highlight how plurilingual pedagogies take shape in unique educational contexts, resisting monolingual approaches to language in education. Furthermore, it includes commentary/response pieces from established scholars in dialogue with recent plurilingual research in the field, to put the work in critical perspective within extant theories and literature.
Plurilingual Pedagogies for Multilingual Writing Classrooms: Engaging the Rich Communicative Repertoires of U.S. Students
by Kay M. Losey Gail ShuckA much-needed resource on plurilingual pedagogies, this book counters the common dominant English-only approach found in writing and composition classrooms by identifying practices and pedagogies that support multilingual students. Providing a window into a range of contexts and classrooms where students’ full identities are honored, contributors offer research-grounded strategies and pedagogies that allow students to harness all of their language resources in order to build on their strengths and develop their writing abilities. The specific examples in this book, drawn from high school and college writing contexts, demonstrate the value of embracing linguistic diversity in writing programs. Presenting a wide range of models and strategies from top scholars that center students’ linguistic repertoires as strengths, the volume addresses classroom teaching, assessment, curriculum, school administration, and more, all from an asset-based orientation. This book is ideal for courses in composition and second-language writing pedagogy as well as for students, scholars, and educators in second language writing, language and literacy education, and composition studies.
Plurilingual Pedagogy in the Arabian Peninsula: Transforming and Empowering Students and Teachers (Routledge Research in Language Education)
by Daniela Coelho Telma Gharibian SteinhagenThis edited collection explores plurilingual education in the unique English medium instruction (EMI) context of the Arabian Peninsula. The book argues that integrating a plurilingual pedagogy alongside current EMI in the region could enhance students’ learning and contribute to a language policy that embraces linguistic diversity while fostering regional identity. It brings together the work of experts in Arabic and English language policy and planning, presenting empirical research relating to plurilingual pedagogical practices within the region. The book offers a range of recommendations for educators on how to integrate plurilingual pedagogies in classroom teaching. This becomes more important since many educators in the region are non-Arabic speakers and are teaching students with diverse linguistic backgrounds through English. With a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to the linguistic landscape in the Arabian region, this book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of applied linguistics, language education, teacher education, and EMI.
Plurilingualism in Teaching and Learning: Complexities Across Contexts
by Julie Choi Sue OllerheadAssembling a rich and diverse range of research studies on the role of plurilingualism across a wide variety of teaching and learning settings, this book supports teacher reflection and action in practical ways and illustrates how researchers tease out and analyze the complex realities of their educational environments. With a focus on education policies, teaching practices, training, and resourcing, this volume addresses a range of mainstream and specialized contexts and examines the position of learners and teachers as users of plurilingual repertoires. Providing a close look into the possibilities and constraints of plurilingual education, this book helps researchers and educators clarify and strengthen their understandings of the links between language and literacy and offers them new ways to think more rigorously and critically about the language ideologies that shape their own beliefs and approaches in language teaching and learning.
Plurinationality and epistemic justice: The challenges of intercultural education in Ecuadorian Amazonia (EADI Global Development Series)
by Ruth Arias-Gutiérrez Paola MinoiaThis book examines interculturality in education in Ecuador at the crossroads between an educational model inherited from the colonial past, which still represents white and mestizo hegemony, and a vision of an alternative form of decolonizing education that contributes to the development of an intercultural and plurinational state, as promised in the Ecuadorian Constitution. Championing indigenous voices and discussing the role of education in the fight against poverty and in the recovery of cultural and ecological diversity, the authors propose that quality education for all, a target of the Sustainable Development Goals, should move out of the commonly defined models of technological modernization and cultural globalization that disvalue knowledge from other cultures. Through their analysis of practical experimentations of indigenous and intercultural education in Amazonian schools and universities, they conclude that enhanced preservation of indigenous languages, cultures and ecological knowledge prove fundamental prerequisites for biological conservation and strengthening societies’ resilience to climate change threats.
Pluriversal Literacies for Sustainable Futures: When Words Are Not Enough (Expanding Literacies in Education)
by Mia PerryThis book presents a new vision of literacy that frames meaning-making and communication in relation to individual, collective, and ecological needs. Building on the concept of the pluriversal, Perry explores how literacy education can support multiple ways of being and becoming. In so doing, Perry rejects limiting and skills-focused definitions of literacy and instead embraces a more profound conceptualisation that reflects the boundless potential of literacy practices. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, Perry connects literacy education with semiotics, philosophy, sustainability studies, and geopolitics to argue for the urgency of a pluriversal model of literacy that combats a normative, neo-colonial understanding of reading and writing. Offering a unique contribution to the field of literacy studies, this book demonstrates how literacy is a semiotic process and literacy practices can connect learner needs with pathways to social, ecological, and cultural sustainability. With Perry as a guide, this illuminating book invites readers to join the journey into literacies beyond words, to arrive at a more holistic and inclusive understanding of what literacy practices are and can be.
Plutarch How to Study Poetry
by Richard Hunter Donald RussellPlutarch's essay 'How to Study Poetry' offers a set of reading practices intended to remove the potential damage that poetry can do to the moral health of young readers. It opens a window on to a world of ancient education and scholarship which can seem rather alien to those brought up in the highly sophisticated world of modern literary theory and criticism. The full Introduction and Commentary, by two of the world's leading scholars in the field, trace the origins and intellectual affiliations of Plutarch's method and fully illustrate the background to each of his examples. As such this book may serve as an introduction to the whole subject of ancient reading practices and literary criticism. The Commentary also pays particular attention to grammar, syntax and style, and sets this essay within the context of Plutarch's thought and writing more generally.