Theophrastus

Statue of Theophrastus, Orto botanico di Palermo
Born	c. 371 BC Eresos
Died	c. 287 BC Athens
Era	Ancient philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Peripatetic school
Main interests	Botany, Ethics, Grammar, History, Logic, Metaphysics, Natural History, Physics
Notable ideas	Developed the philosophy of Aristotle
Influenced by Aristotle, Plato
Influenced Strato of Lampsacus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the entire Peripatetic school

Theophrastus (Greek: Θεόφραστος; c. 371 – c. 287 BC^[1]), a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, during which time the school flourished greatly. After his death, the Athenians honoured him with a public funeral. His successor as head of the school was Strato of Lampsacus.

The interests of Theophrastus were wide-ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants^[2] and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on medieval science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sensation, On Stones, and fragments on Physics and Metaphysics all written in Greek. In philosophy, he studied grammar and language, and continued Aristotle's work on logic. He also regarded space as the mere arrangement and position of bodies, time as an accident of motion, and motion as a necessary consequence of all activity. In ethics, he regarded happiness as depending on external influences as well as on virtue, and famously said that "life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom."

Life[link]

Most of the biographical information we have of Theophrastus was provided by Diogenes Laërtius' Lives of the Philosophers, written more than four hundred years after Theophrastus' time.^[2] He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.^[3] His given name was Tyrtamus (Greek: Τύρταμος), but he later became known by the nickname "Theophrastus," given to him, it is said, by Aristotle to indicate the grace of his conversation (ancient Greek: Θεός = God and φράζειν = to phrase i.e. divine expression).^[4]

Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Strato of Lampsacus. Part of a fresco in the National University of Athens

After receiving instruction in philosophy in Lesbos from one Alcippus, he moved to Athens, where he may have studied under Plato.^[5] He became friends with Aristotle, and when Plato died (348/7 BC) Theophrastus may have joined Aristotle in his self-imposed exile from Athens. When Aristotle moved to Mytilene on Lesbos in 345/4, it is very likely that he did so at the urging of Theophrastus.^[6] It seems that it was on Lesbos that Aristotle and Theophrastus began their research into natural science, with Aristotle studying animals and Theophrastus studying plants.^[7] Theophrastus probably accompanied Aristotle to Macedonia when Aristotle was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 343/2.^[6] Around 335 BC, Theophrastus moved with Aristotle to Athens where Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum. When, after the death of Alexander, anti-Macedonian feeling forced Aristotle to leave Athens, Theophrastus remained behind as head (scholarch) of the peripatetic school,^[6] a position he continued to hold after Aristotle's death in 322/1.

Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, including Nicomachus with whom he was close.^[8] Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works,^[9] and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum.^[10] Eudemus of Rhodes also had some claims to this position, and Aristoxenus is said to have resented Aristotle's choice.^[11]

Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-five years,^[12] and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes.^[13] He is said to have remarked "we die just when we are beginning to live".^[14]

Under his guidance the school flourished greatly — there were at one period more than 2000 students, Diogenes affirms,^[15] and at his death, according to the terms of his will preserved by Diogenes, he bequeathed to it his garden with house and colonnades as a permanent seat of instruction. The comic poet Menander was among his pupils.^[15] His popularity was shown in the regard paid to him by Philip, Cassander, and Ptolemy, and by the complete failure of a charge of impiety brought against him.^[16] He was honored with a public funeral, and "the whole population of Athens, honouring him greatly, followed him to the grave."^[17] He was succeeded as head of the Lyceum by Strato of Lampsacus.

Writings[link]

From the lists of Diogenes Laërtius, giving 227 titles, it appears that the activity of Theophrastus extended over the whole field of contemporary knowledge.^[11] His writing probably differed little from Aristotle's treatment of the same themes, though supplementary in details. Like Aristotle, most of his writings are lost works.^[11]

Thus Theophrastus, like Aristotle, had composed a first and second Analytic.^[18] He had also written books on Topics;^[19] on the refutation of fallacies;^[20] as well as books on the Principles of Natural Philosophy (Physica Auscultatio), on Heaven, and on Meteorological Phenomena.^[21] The work of Theophrastus On Affirmation and Denial seems to have corresponded to that of Aristotle's On Judgment.

Frontispiece to the illustrated 1644 edition of the Enquiry into Plants (Historia Plantarum)

In addition, he wrote on the Warm and the Cold,^[22] on Water, Fire,^[23] the Sea,^[23] on Coagulation and Melting, on various phenomena of organic and spiritual life,^[23] and on the Soul and Sensuous Perception.^[24] Likewise we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus,^[25] Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus,^[26] which were made use of by Simplicius; and also on Xenocrates,^[27] against the Academics,^[28] and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato.^[26] That he studied general history, as we see from the quotations in Plutarch's lives of Lycurgus, Solon, Aristides, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus, and Demosthenes, which were probably borrowed from the work on Lives.^[18] But his main efforts were to continue the labours of Aristotle in natural history. This is testified to not only by a number of treatises on individual subjects of zoology, of which, besides the titles, only fragments remain, but also by his books on Stones, his Enquiry into Plants, and On the Causes of Plants, which have come down to us entire. In politics, also, he seems to have trodden in the footsteps of Aristotle. Besides his books on the State, we find quoted various treatises on Education,^[29] on Royalty,^[30] on the Best State, on Political Morals, and particularly his works on the Laws, one of which, containing a recapitulation of the laws of various barbarian as well as Greek states,^[22] was intended to be a companion to Aristotle's outline of Politics, and must have been similar to it.^[31] He also wrote on oratory and poetry.^[32] Theophrastus, without doubt, departed further from Aristotle in his ethical writings,^[33] as also in his metaphysical investigations respecting motion, the soul, and God.^[34]

Besides these writings, Theophrastus was the author of several collections of problems, out of which some things at least have passed into the Problems that have come down to us under the name of Aristotle,^[35] and commentaries,^[36] partly dialogues,^[37] to which probably belonged the Erotikos,^[38] Megacles,^[27] Callisthenes,^[39] and Megarikos,^[22] and letters,^[40] partly books on mathematical sciences and their history.^[41]

Many of his works that we do have exist only in fragmentary form. "The style of these works, as of the botanical books, suggests that, as in the case of Aristotle, what we possess consists of notes for lectures or notes taken of lectures," his translator Arthur Hort remarks.^[2] "There is no literary charm; the sentences are mostly compressed and highly elliptical, to the point sometimes of obscurity.^[2] The text of these fragments and extracts is often so corrupt that there is a certain plausibility to the well-known story that the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus were allowed to languish in the cellar of Neleus of Scepsis and his descendents.^[42]

On Plants[link]

Cotton ready for harvest

Banyan tree

The most important of his books are two large botanical treatises, Enquiry into Plants, and On the Causes of Plants, which constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and the Middle Ages,^[11] the first systemization of the botanical world; on the strength of these works some call him the "father of botany."^[7]

The Enquiry into Plants was originally ten books, of which nine survive. The work is arranged into a system whereby plants are classified according to their modes of generation, their localities, their sizes, and according to their practical uses such as foods, juices, herbs, etc.^[43] The first book deals with the parts of plants; the second book with the reproduction of plants and the times and manner of sowing; the third, fourth, and fifth books are devoted to trees, their types, their locations, and their practical applications; the sixth book deals with shrubs and spiny plants; the seventh book deals with herbs; the eighth book deals with plants that produce edible seeds; and the ninth book deals with plants that produce useful juices, gums, resins, etc.^[43]

Cinnamomum verum, from Köhler's Medicinal Plants, (1887)

Myrrh

On the Causes of Plants was originally eight books, of which six survive. It concerns the growth of plants; the influences on their fecundity; the proper times they should be sown and reaped; the methods of preparing the soil, manuring it, and the use of tools; and of the smells, tastes, and properties of many types of plants.^[43] The work deals mainly with the economical uses of plants rather than their medicinal uses, although the latter is sometimes mentioned.^[43]

Although these works contain many absurd and fabulous statements, as a whole they have many valuable observations concerning the functions and properties of plants.^[43] Theophrastus detected the process of germination and realized the importance of climate and soil to plants. Much of the information on the Greek plants may have come from his own observations, as he is known to have travelled throughout Greece, and to have had a botanical garden of his own; but the works also profit from the reports on plants of Asia brought back from those who followed Alexander the Great:

to the reports of Alexander's followers he owed his accounts of such plants as the cotton-plant, banyan, pepper, cinnamon, myrrh, and frankincense.^[2]

Frankincense trees in Dhufar

Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants was first published in a Latin translation by Theodore Gaza, at Treviso, 1483;^[44] in its original Greek it first appeared from the press of Aldus Manutius at Venice, 1495–98, from a third-rate manuscript, which, like the majority of the manuscripts that were sent to printers' workshops in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, has disappeared.^[45] Wimmer identified two manuscripts of first quality, the Codex Urbinas in the Vatican Library, which was not made known to J. G. Schneider, who made the first modern critical edition, 1818–21, and the excerpts in the Codex Parisiensis in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Characters[link]

His book The Characters, if it is indeed his, deserves a separate mention. The work 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.^[11] 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.^[11] Theophrastus has found many imitators in this kind of writing, notably Joseph Hall (1608), Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16), Bishop Earle (1628), and Jean de La Bruyère (1688), who also translated the Characters.^[11] George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus' Characters, most notably in her book of caricatures, Impressions of Theophrastus Such. Writing the "character sketch" as a scholastic exercise also originated in Theophrastus's typology.

On Sensation[link]

A treatise On Sense Perception and its objects is important for a knowledge of the doctrines of the more ancient Greek philosophers regarding the subject. A paraphrase and commentary on this work was written by Priscian of Lydia in the sixth century.^[43] With this type of work we may connect the fragments on Smells, on Fatigue, on Dizziness, on Sweat, on Swooning, on Palsy, and on Honey.^[42]

Physics[link]

We also possess in fragments a History of Physics. To this class of work belong the still extant sections on Fire, on the Winds, and on the signs of Waters, Winds, and Storms.^[46] Various smaller scientific fragments have been collected in the editions of Johann Gottlob Schneider (1818–21) and Friedrich Wimmer (1842—62) and in Hermann Usener's Analecta Theophrastea.

Metaphysics[link]

The Metaphysics (nine chapters) was considered a fragment of a larger work by Usener in his edition (Theophrastos Metaphysica, Bonn, 1890), but according to Ross and Fobes in their edition (Theophrastus Metaphysica, Oxford, 1929), the treatise is complete (p. X) and this opinion is now widely accepted. There is no reason for assigning this work to some other author because it is not noticed in Hermippus and Andronicus, especially as Nicolaus of Damascus had already mentioned it.^[42]

On Stones[link]

Cut emeralds

Baltic amber necklace

We possess a treatise On Stones, in which Theophrastus classified rocks based on their behavior when heated, further grouping minerals by common properties, such as amber and magnetite, which both have the power of attraction.^[47] He also comments on the effect of heat on minerals and their different hardnesses.

He describes different marbles; mentions coal, which he says is used for heating by metal-workers; describes the various metal ores; and knew that pumice-stones had a volcanic origin. He also deals with precious stones, emeralds, amethysts, onyx, jasper, etc., and describes a variety of "sapphire" that was blue with veins of gold, and thus was presumably lapis-lazuli.^[47]

He knew that pearls came from shell-fish, that coral came from India, and speaks of the fossilized remains of organic life.^[47] Theophrastus made the first known reference to the phenomenon of pyroelectricity, noting that the mineral tourmaline becomes charged when heated. He also considers the practical uses of various stones, such as the minerals necessary for the manufacture of glass; for the production of various pigments of paint such as ochre; and for the manufacture of plaster.^[47] He discusses the use of the touchstone for assaying gold and gold alloys, an important property which would require the genius of Archimedes to resolve in quantitative detail when he was asked to investigate the suspected debasement of a crown a few years later.

Bi-colored tourmaline crystal.

Many of the rarer minerals were found in mines, and he mentions the famous copper mines of Cyprus and the even more famous silver mines, presumably of Laurium near Athens, and upon which the wealth of the city was based, as well as referring to gold mines. The Laurium silver mines, which were the property of the state, were usually leased for a fixed sum and a percentage on the working. Towards the end of the fifth century the output fell, partly owing to the Spartan occupation of Decelea. But the mines continued to be worked, though Strabo records that in his time the tailings were being worked over, and Pausanias speaks of the mines as a thing of the past. The ancient workings, consisting of shafts and galleries for excavating the ore, and washing tables for extracting the metal, may still be seen. Theophrastus wrote a separate work On Mining,^[22] which like most of his writings is a lost work.

Pliny the Elder makes clear references to his use of On Stones in his Naturalis Historia of 77 AD, while updating and making much new information available on minerals himself. Although Pliny's treatment of the subject is more extensive, Theophrastus is more systematic and his work is comparatively free from fable and magic.^[48] From both of these early texts was to emerge the science of mineralogy, and ultimately geology. Pliny is especially observant on crystal habit and mineral hardness, for example.

Philosophy[link]

Theophrastus, depicted as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle

The extent to which Theophrastus followed Aristotle's doctrines, or defined them more accurately, or conceived them in a different form, and what additional structures of thought he placed upon them, can only be partially determined because of the loss of so many of his writings.^[42] Many of his opinions have to be reconstructed from the works of later writers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Simplicius.

Logic[link]

Theophrastus seems to have carried out still further the grammatical foundation of logic and rhetoric, since in his book on the elements of speech, he distinguished the main parts of speech from the subordinate parts, and also direct expressions (kuria lexis) from metaphorical expressions, and dealt with the emotions (pathe) of speech.^[49] He further distinguished a twofold reference of speech (schisis) to things (pragmata) and to the hearers, and referred poetry and rhetoric to the latter.^[50]

He wrote at length on the unity of judgment,^[51] on the different kinds of negation,^[52] and on the difference between unconditional and conditional necessity.^[53] In his doctrine of syllogisms he brought forward the proof for the conversion of universal affirmative judgments, differed from Aristotle here and there in the laying down and arranging the modi of the syllogisms,^[54] partly in the proof of them,^[55] partly in the doctrine of mixture, i.e. of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion.^[56] Then in two separate works he dealt with the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form and on the resolution of them;^[57] and further, with hypothetical conclusions.^[58] For the doctrine of proof, Galen quotes the second Analytic of Theophrastus, in conjunction with that of Aristotle, as the best treatises on that doctrine.^[59] In different monographs he seems to have tried to expand it into a general theory of science. To this too may have belonged the proposition quoted from his Topics, that the principles of opposites are themselves opposed, and cannot be deduced from one and the same higher genus.^[60] For the rest, some minor deviations from the Aristotelian definitions are quoted from the Topica of Theophrastus.^[61] Closely connected with this treatise was that upon ambiguous words or ideas,^[62] which, without doubt, corresponded to book E of Aristotle's Metaphysics.^[42]

Physics and metaphysics[link]

Theophrastus introduced his Physics with the proof that all natural existence, being corporeal and composite, requires principles,^[63] and first and foremost, motion, as the basis of all change.^[64] Denying the substance of space, he seems to have regarded it, in opposition to Aristotle, as the mere arrangement and position (taxis and thesis) of bodies.^[65] Time he called an accident of motion, without, it seems, viewing it, with Aristotle, as the numerical determinant of motion.^[66] He attacked the doctrine of the four classical elements and challenged whether fire could be called a primary element when it appears to be compound, requiring, as it does, another material for its own nutriment.^[67]

Aristotle

He departed more widely from Aristotle in his doctrine of motion, since on the one hand he extended it over all categories, and did not limit it to those laid down by Aristotle.^[68] He viewed motion, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own goal in itself (ateles), of that which only potentially exists,^[69] but he opposed Aristotle's view that motion required a special explanation, and he regarded it as something proper both to nature in general and the celestial system in particular:

Surely, then, if the life in animals does not need explanation or is to be explained only in this way, may it not be the case that in the heavens too, and in the heavenly bodies, movement does not need explanation or is to be explained in a special way?

—Theophrastus, Metaphysics, 10a.16-29

He recognised no activity without motion,^[70] and so referred all activities of the soul to motion: the desires and emotions to corporeal motion, judgment (kriseis) and contemplation to spiritual motion.^[71] The idea of a spirit entirely independent of organic activity, must therefore have appeared to him very doubtful; yet he appears to have contented himself with developing his doubts and difficulties on the point, without positively rejecting it.^[72] Other Peripatetics, like Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and especially Strato, developed further this naturalism in Aristotelian doctrine.

Theophrastus seems, generally speaking, where the investigation overstepped the limits of experience, to have preferred to develop the difficulties rather than solve them, as is especially apparent in his Metaphysics.^[42] He was doubtful of Aristotle's teleology and recommended that such ideas be used with caution:

With regard to the view that all things are for the sake of an end and nothing is in vain, the assignation of ends is in general not easy, as it is usually stated to be ... we must set certain limits to purposiveness and to the effort after the best, and not assert it to exist in all cases without qualification.

—Theophrastus, Metaphysics, 10a.22-24, 11a.1-3

He did not follow the incessant attempts by Aristotle to refer phenomena to their ultimate foundations, or his attempts to unfold the internal connections between the latter, and between them and phenomena.^[42] In antiquity, it was a subject of complaint that Theophrastus had not expressed himself with precision and consistency respecting God, and had understood it at one time as Heaven, at another an (enlivening) breath (pneuma).^[73]

Ethics[link]

Theophrastus did not allow a happiness resting merely upon virtue,^[74] or, consequently, to hold fast by the unconditional value of morality. He subordinated moral requirements to the advantage at least of a friend,^[75] and had allowed in prosperity the existence of an influence injurious to them. In later times, fault was found with his expression in the Callisthenes, "life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom," (Latin: vitam regit fortuna non sapientia).^[76] That in the definition of pleasure, likewise, he did not coincide with Aristotle, seems to be indicated by the titles of two of his writings, one of which dealt with pleasure generally, the other with pleasure as Aristotle had defined it.^[22] Although, like his teacher, he preferred contemplative (theoretical), to active (practical) life,^[77] he preferred to set the latter free from the restraints of family life, etc. in a manner of which Aristotle would not have approved.^[78]

The bust inscribed "Theophrastos Melanta Eresios"

Theophrastus was opposed to eating meat on the grounds that it robbed animals of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do.^[79]

The "portrait" of Theophrastus[link]

The marble herm figure with the bearded head of philosopher type, bearing the explicit inscription, must be taken as purely conventional. Unidentified portrait heads did not find a ready market in post-Renaissance Rome.^[80] This bust was formerly in the collection of marchese Pietro Massimi at Palazzo Massimi and belonged to marchese L. Massimi at the time the engraving was made. It is now in the Villa Albani, Rome (inv. 1034). The inscribed bust has often been illustrated in engravings^[81] and photographs: a photograph of it forms the frontispiece to the Loeb Classical Library Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants vol. I, 1916. André Thevet illustrated^[82] in his iconographic compendium, Les vraies Pourtrats et vies des Hommes Illustres (Paris, 1584), an alleged portrait plagiarized from the bust, supporting his fraud with the invented tale that he had obtained it from the library of a Greek in Cyprus and that he had seen a confirming bust in the ruins of Antioch.^[83]

Notes[link]

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Theophrastus". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Theophrastus. 
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1867). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 
• "Theophrastus" entry in the Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, edited by George Long, (1842), Volume 24, pages 332-4
• Georges Cuvier, "Lecture Ninth - Theophrastus" in Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the Natural Sciences, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, (1830), Volume 18, pages 76–83

Further reading[link]

• Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his life, writings, thought and influence. I. Life, writings, various reports, logic, physics, metaphysics, theology, mathematics. Edited by Fortenbaugh William W. et al. Leiden: Brill 1992.
• Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his life, writings, thought and influence. II. Psychology, human physiology, living creatures, botany, ethics, religion, politics, rhetoric and poetics, music, miscellanea. Edited by Fortenbaugh William W. et al. Leiden: Brill 1992.
• Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his life, writings, thought and influence. Commentary, 9 volumes planned; published volumes:
  • 2. Logic, by Pamela Huby; with contributions on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas.
  • 3/1. Sources on physics (texts 137-223), by R. W. Sharples.
  • 4. Psychology (texts 265-327), by Pamela Huby; with contributions on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas.
  • 5. Sources on biology (human physiology, living creatures, botany: texts 328-435), by R. W. Sharples.
  • 8. Sources on rhetoric and poetics (texts 666-713), by William W. Fortenbaugh.
• Theophrastus, (1993), Metaphysics. With an Introduction, Translation and Commentary by M. van Raalte, Leiden: Brill
• Theophrastus, (1916), Enquiry into Plants: Books 1-5. Translated by A.F. Hort. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99077-3
• Theophrastus, (1916), Enquiry into Plants: Books 6-9; Treatise on Odours; Concerning Weather Signs. Translated by A. Hort. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99088-9
• Theophrastus, (1989), De Causis Plantarum: Books 1-2. Translated by B. Einarson and G. Link. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99519-8
• Theophrastus, (1990), De Causis Plantarum: Books 3-4. Translated by B. Einarson and G. Link. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99523-6
• Theophrastus, (1990), De Causis Plantarum, Books 5-6. Translated by B. Einarson and G. Link. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99524-4
• Theophrastus, (2003), Characters. Translated by J. Rusten. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99603-8
• Theophrastus, (2002), On Sweat, On Dizziness and On Fatigue. Translated by W. Fortenbaugh, R. Sharples, M. Sollenberger. Brill. ISBN 90-04-12890-5
• Theophrastus, (2007), On weather signs. Edited by Sider David and Brunschön Carl Wolfram. Leiden: Brill 2007
• Theophrastus, (2010), On First Principles (known as his Metaphysics). Edited and translated by Dimitri Gutas Leiden: Brill 2010.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Theophrastus

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Theophrastus

• Enquiry into plants and minor works on odours and weather signs, translated by Sir Arthur Hort, (1916), Volume 1, Volume 2, at the Internet Archive.
• Theophrastus work "On Stones" full text + annotation
• Theophrastus of Eresus on winds and on weather signs, (1894), by J. G. Wood, G. J. Symons, at the Internet Archive.
• Theophrastus and the Greek physiological psychology before Aristotle, by George Malcolm Stratton, (1917), at the Internet Archive. Contains a translation of On the Senses by Theophrastus.
• Theophrastus work "The Characters" English translation
• The Characters of Theophrastus, translated by J. M. Edmonds, (1929), at the Internet Archive.
• Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Theophrastus, translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1925).
• Peripatetic Logic: The Work of Eudemus of Rhodes and Theophrastus of Eresus
• The Oblivion of Being after Aristotle: Theophrastus' Metaphysics
• International Vegetarian Union: Theophrastus
• Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries High resolution images of works by Theophrastus in .jpg and .tiff format.

Elliott Cook Carter Jr.

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

He has been extremely productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100,^[1] and over 14 more since he turned 100 in 2008.^[2]

Biography[link]

Carter's father, Elliott Carter Sr., was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager, he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924, a galvanized 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter.^[3] Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music. His professors included Walter Piston and Gustav Holst. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932–35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935, he returned to the US where he wrote music for the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944, Carter taught in the program, including music, at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946–1948), Columbia University, Queens College, New York (1955–56), Yale University (1960–62), Cornell University (from 1967) and the Juilliard School (from 1972). In 1967, he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1981, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, in 1985 the National Medal of Arts. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village since 1945.^[1]

On December 11, 2008, Carter celebrated his 100th birthday at Carnegie Hall in New York, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim played his Interventions for Piano and Orchestra from 2008. Between the ages of 90 and 100, Carter published more than 40 works, and after his 100th birthday he has composed at least 14 more.^[1]

On February 7, 2009, Carter was given the Trustees Award (a lifetime achievement award given to non-performers) by the Grammy Awards.^[4]

Carter is on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center where he gives annual composition master classes.

Style and works[link]

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Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938–39). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e., all possible three-note chords, five-note chords, etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized these data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970s generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

The Piano Concerto (1964–65) uses the collection of three-note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras uses the collection of six-note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies uses the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically, the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble."^{[cite this quote]} He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by twentieth-century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954–5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959–61); the Piano Concerto (1964–65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets,^[5] of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers (works up to 1981) or Boosey & Hawkes (works since 1981).

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine featuring pianist Daniel Barenboim at Symphony Hall in Boston. The pianist reprised the work again with the BSO at Carnegie Hall in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday.^[1] Carter was also present at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival to hear the world premiere of his song-cycle On Conversing with Paradise, based on Ezra Pound's Canto 95 (from the section Rock-Drill) and one of Pound's 'Notes' intended for later Cantos, and usually published at the end of the Cantos. ^[6] The premiere was given on June 20, 2009 by baritone Leigh Melrose and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Oliver Knussen.^[7]

Figment V for marimba with Simon Boyar was premiered in New York on 2 May 2009 and Poems of Louis Zukofsky for soprano and clarinet had its first performance by Lucy Shelton and Stanley Drucker at the Tanglewood Festival on August 9, 2009. The US premiere of the Flute Concerto took place on February 4, 2010, with soloist Elizabeth Rowe and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Partial list of works[link]

Ballet[link]

• Pocahontas (1938–39)
• The Minotaur (1947)

Chamber[link]

• Canonic Suite for saxophone quartet (AAAA) (1939)
• Elegy for viola and piano (1943)
• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Cello Sonata (1948)
• Woodwind Quintet (1948)
• Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for wind quartet (1949) [2]
• String Quartet No. 1 (1951)
• Sonata for flute, oboe, cello, and harpsichord (1952)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1959)
• Canon for 3 (1971)
• String Quartet No. 3 (1971)
• Brass Quintet (1974)
• Duo for violin and piano (1974)
• Birthday Fanfare for three trumpets, vibraphone, and glockenspiel (1978)
• Triple Duo (1983)
• Esprit rude/esprit doux for flute and clarinet (1984)
• Canon for 4 (1984)
• String Quartet No. 4 (1986)
• Enchanted Prelude for flute and cello (1988)
• Con leggerezza pensosa for clarinet, violin, and cello (1990)
• Quintet for piano and winds (1991)
• Trilogy for oboe and harp (1992)

1. Bariolage for harp
2. Inner Song for oboe
3. Immer Neu for oboe and harp

• Esprit rude/esprit doux II for flute, clarinet, and marimba (1994)
• Fragment I for string quartet (1994)
• String Quartet No.5 (1995)
• Luimen for ensemble (1997)
• Quintet for piano and string quartet (1997)
• Fragment II for string quartet (1999)
• Oboe Quartet, for oboe, violin, viola, and cello (2001)
• Hiyoku for two clarinets (2001)
• Au Quai for bassoon and viola (2002)
• Call for two trumpets and horn (2003)
• Clarinet Quintet (2007)
• Tintinnabulation for percussion sextet (2008)
• Tre Duetti for violin and cello (2008, 2009)

1. Duettone
2. Adagio
3. Duettino

• Trije glasbeniki for flute, bass clarinet, and harp (2011)
• String Trio (2011)
• Double Trio for trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, violin and cello (2011)

Choral[link]

• Tarantella for men's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Let's Be Gay for women's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Harvest Home for a capella choir (1937)
• To Music for a capella choir (1937)
• Heart Not So Heavy for a capella choir (1939)
• The Defense of Corinth for speaker, men's chorus and piano four hands (1941)
• The Harmony of Morning for women's chorus and chamber orchestra (1944)
• Musicians Wrestle Everywhere for a capella choir (1945)
• Emblems for men's chorus and piano (1947)

Concertante[link]

• Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959–61)
• Piano Concerto (1964)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
• Oboe Concerto (1986–1987)
• Violin Concerto (1989)
• Clarinet Concerto (1996)
• Cello Concerto (2001)
• Boston Concerto (2002)
• Dialogues for piano and chamber orchestra (2003)
• Mosaic for harp and ensemble (2004)
• Horn Concerto (2007)
• Flute Concerto (2008)
• Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra (2009)
• Conversations for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2010)
• Two Controversies and a Conversation for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2011)

Large ensemble[link]

• Penthode for ensemble (1985)
• ASKO Concerto for sixteen players (2000)
• Réflexions for ensemble (2004)
• Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008)

Opera[link]

• What Next? (opera in one act) (1997)

Orchestra[link]

• Symphony No. 1 (1942, revised 1954)
• Holiday Overture (1944, revised 1961)
• Variations for orchestra (1954–1955)
• A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976)
• Three Occasions for orchestra (1986–89)

1. A Celebration of Some 150x100 Notes
2. Remembrance
3. Anniversary

• Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96)

1. Partita
2. Adagio Tenebroso
3. Allegro Scorrevole

• Three Illusions for orchestra (2002–04)

1. Micomicón
2. Fons Juventatis
3. More's Utopia

• Soundings for piano and orchestra (2005)
• Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007)
• Sound Fields for string orchestra (2007)

Solo instrumental[link]

• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (1949/66)
• Night Fantasies for piano (1980)
• Changes for guitar (1983)
• Scrivo in Vento for flute (1991)
• Gra for clarinet (1994)
• 90+ for piano (1994)
• Figment for cello (1994)
• A 6-letter Letter for English horn (1996)
• Shard for guitar (1997)
• Two Diversions for piano (1999)
• Four Lauds for solo violin (1999, 1984, 2000, 1999)

1. I. Statement – Remembering Aaron
2. II. Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
3. III. Rhapsodic Musings
4. IV. Fantasy – Remembering Roger

• Retrouvailles for piano (2000)
• Figment II for cello (2001)
• Steep Steps for bass clarinet (2001)
• Retracing for bassoon (2002)
• Intermittences for piano (2005)
• Caténaires for piano (2006)
• HBHH for oboe (2007)
• Figment III for contrabass (2007)
• Figment IV for viola (2007)
• Tri-Tribute for piano (2007, 2008)

1. "Matribute"
2. "Fratribute"
3. "Sistribute"

• Figment V for marimba (2009)
• Retracing II for horn (2009)
• Retracing III for trumpet (2009)

Voice[link]

• My Love Is in a Light Attire for voice and piano (1928)
• Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred for voice and guitar (1938)
• A Mirror on Which to Dwell for soprano and ensemble (1975)
• Syringa for mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone, guitar, and ensemble (1978)
• Three Poems of Robert Frost for baritone and ensemble (1942, orchestrated 1980)
• In Sleep, in Thunder for tenor and ensemble (1981)
• Of Challenge and of Love for soprano and piano (1994)
• Tempo e Tempi for soprano, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello (1998–99)
• Of Rewaking for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2002)
• In the Distances of Sleep for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra (2006)
• Mad Regales for six solo voices (2007)
• La Musique for solo voice (2007)
• Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008) for mezzo-soprano and clarinet
• On Conversing with Paradise (2008) for baritone and chamber orchestra
• What Are Years (2009) for soprano and chamber orchestra
• A Sunbeam's Architecture (2010) for tenor and chamber orchestra
• Three Explorations (2011) for bass-baritone, winds, and brass

Partial discography[link]

• Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello and Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras. Paul Jacobs, hpschd; Joel Krosnick, cello; Gilbert Kalish, piano; The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, cond. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79183-2.
• String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. The Composers Quartet. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 71249-2
• Piano Concerto; Variations for Orchestra. Ursula Oppens, piano; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. New World Records, NW 347–2.
• Triple Duo; Clarinet Concerto; short pieces. Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Lorraine Vaillancourt, cond. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2280.
• Complete Music for Piano. Charles Rosen, Piano. Bridge 9090.
• Vocal Works (1975–81): A Mirror on Which to Dwell; In Sleep, In Thunder; Syringa; Three Poems of Robert Frost. Speculum Musicae with Katherine Ciesinki, mezzo; Jon Garrison, tenor; Jan Opalach, bass; Christine Schadeberg, soprano. Bridge, BCD 9014.
• Dialogues; Boston Concerto; Cello Concerto; ASKO Concerto. Nicolas Hodges, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, ASKO Ensemble, Oliver Knussen, cond. Bridge 9184.

Notable students[link]

• Ronald Caltabiano
• Joel Chadabe
• Alvin Curran
• Joel Hoffman
• Tod Machover
• Jeffrey Mumford
• Tobias Picker
• David Schiff
• William Schimmel
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

References[link]

Doering, William T. Elliott Carter: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1993.

Interviews[link]

• Elliott Carter interview by Bruce Duffie, June 1986
• American Gothic: An Interview with Elliott Carter, by Andy Carvin, 1992
• A January 1994 interview with Elliott Carter by Phil Lesh
• NewMusicBox: Elliott Carter in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, 2000
• MusicMavericks.PublicRadio.org: An interview with Elliot Carter by Alan Baker, Minnesota Public Radio, July 2002
• Radical Connections on Counterstream Radio: Elliott Carter and Phil Lesh in Conversation, December 2007]
• Elliott Carter Centenary Podcast, an interview with Frank J. Oteri, November 27, 2007
• TV Interview (with Daniel Barenboim and James Levine) by Charlie Rose, December 10, 2008

Listening[link]

• Elliott Carter: A Life In Music, a documentary (1983)
• Art of the States: Elliott Carter four works by the composer
• Elliott Carter interview from American Mavericks site
• Excerpts from sound archives of Carter's works

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Elliott Carter

• Yale University Library: Research Guide to Elliott Carter's Life and Music
• Elliott Carter by photographer Philippe Gontier
• Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents by Felix Meyer & Anne C. Shreffler published by the Boydell Press in association with the Paul Sacher Foundation.
• Elliott Carter at G. Schirmer/AMP
• Elliott Carter at Boosey and Hawkes
• The String Quartets of Elliott Carter Booklet note for recording by the Arditti Quartet of Quartets 1–4 and Elegy (1988 ETCETERA KTC 1065/1066), by David Harvey
• CompositionToday – Elliot Carter article and review of works
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080201015213/http://www.carter100.com/ Elliott Carter Centenary 2008]
• John Link's Analysis of Night Fantasies
• Joshua B. Mailman's "Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter's Scrivo in Vento (with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus)"
• (French) A biography of Elliott Carter, from IRCAM's website.
• Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts