The Characters
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Characters is a book by Greek philosopher Theophrastus (371 – c. 287 BC) which contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a most valuable picture of the life of his time, and in fact of human nature in general. Writing the "character sketch" as a scholastic exercise also originated in Theophrastus's typology.
They are the first recorded attempt at systematic character writing. The book has been regarded by some as an independent work; others incline to the view that the sketches were written from time to time by Theophrastus, and collected and edited after his death; others, again, regard the Characters as part of a larger systematic work, but the style of the book is against this. Theophrastus has found many imitators in this kind of writing, notably Hall (1608), Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16), Bishop Earle (1628) and Jean de La Bruyère (1688), who also translated the Characters into French. George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus' Characters, most notably in her book of caricatures, Impressions of Theophrastus Such.
The characters
Cavilling · Flattery · Garrulitie · Rusticity · Smoothness · Senselessness · Loquacity · News-forging · Impudency · Avarice · Obscenity · Unseasonableness · Impertinent Diligence · Blockishness · Stubbornness · Superstition · Complaining · Diffidence · Nastiness · Unpleasantness · Affectation · Illiberality · Ostentation · Pride · Timidity · Oligarchy · Late-learning · Detraction
The study of the Character, as it is now known, was conceived by Aristotle’s student Theophrastus. In The Characters (c. 319 BC), Theophrastus introduced the “character sketch,” which became the core of “the Character as a genre.” It included 30 character types. Each type is said to be an illustration of an individual who represents a group, characterized by his most prominent trait. The Theophrastan types are as follows:
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It is unclear wherefrom Theophrastus derived these types, but many strongly resemble those from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Despite the fact that Theophrastus sought to portray character types and not individuals, some of the sketches may have been drawn from observations of actual persons in Athenian public life. Although the preface of the work implies the intention to catalogue “human nature, associate[ed] with all sorts and conditions of men and contrast[ed] in minute detail the good and bad among them,” many other possible types are left unrepresented. These omissions are especially noticeable because each of the thirty characters represents a negative trait (“the bad”); some scholars have therefore suspected that another half of the work, covering the positive types (“the good”), once existed. This preface, however, is certainly fictitious, i.e. added in later times, and cannot therefore be a source of any allegation. Nowadays many scholars also believe that the definitions found in the beginning of each sketch are later additions.
Full text
see The Characters of Theophrastus (R.C. Jebb translation)