La catena di influenze nella ricezione moderna di Plutarco e il riuso delle Vite di Cesare e Bruto: teoria e prassi dei Classical Reception Studies

Last perspectives on the study of Classical Reception, solicited and collected by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray, allow us to observe under a new theoretical light the famous works of literature considered 'classic', rethinking its reception as the result of a chain of influences and different reuses. Taken from Lausberg, the idea of 'reuse' makes it possible to clarify the relationship between a classical work and its own readings, not exempt, from the point of view of the end user, of mutual influence. An example of continuous palingenesis of classical works is represented by the fortune of two biographies written by Plutarch: the Lives of Caesar and Brutus. Through the Western rediscovery of Parallel Lives, we try to expose pragmatically what is theorized reviewing the story of rereading and reuse of the mentioned 'Vitae' from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, without omitting the complex intertwining between reception and tradition.