Search Results
Abstract
The chapter examines Plutarch’s De tuenda sanitate praecepta as a work where intertextuality may be observed in some of its aspects and functions. In De tuenda Plutarch’s educational goal seems to be the creation of a balance between soul and body, helping the readers to become good doctors of their body and to achieve the virtue through health. In this treatise philosophy, literature and medicine interact through intertextual devices and intratextual references, sometimes showing the interdiscursivity with the medical discourse and the intergenericity with other different literary genres. Through the example of previous authors, philosophers, rulers and famous or normal citizens, Plutarch contaminates and integrates his literary models, creating a discourse that seems to be at the same time complete, useful and pleasant for the readers. And the self-exploration appears to be the best direction towards a moralistic vision of the intellectual and social community.