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The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Meditations . Articles

• HTML edition organized into twelve books (Classics Archive, 20--40KB each book)
  -- Translated by George Long.
  
• HTML edition divided into books (Evansville)
  -- Translated by George Long.
  

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• Brief Biography of Marcus Aurelius (Ecole)
  
• Article on Stoicism (Stanford)
  -- This article by Dirk Baltzly provides an overview of the philosophical system within which Marcus Aurelius wrote.
  
• Western Canon Mailing List (P.J. Barnette, Jr)
  -- The "Meditations" is the October 1997 selection for discussion on the Western Canon mailing list. An excellent opportunity.
  
• -- Not online, but recommended: The Penguin Classics edition of the "Meditations", translated by Maxwell Staniforth. See particularly the introduction, also by Staniforth.
  
• -- Other translations than Long's and Staniforth's: Staniforth mentions several. Some of these are public domain and suitable for scanning for Project Gutenberg. In 1898, by G.H. Rendall, "the most lively, scholarly and idiomatic of all English versions." In 1634, by Meric Casaubon, "archaic, cumbrous and involved" [and one is reminded of Middlemarch]. And in 1701, by Jeremy Collier, "strays so far from the original that it is scarcely more than a paraphrase." Of Long's translation of 1862, Staniforth says it is "admirably correct, as literal as a school crib, and ... utterly unreadable." At least in the case of Long, you may judge for yourself.
  
• -- Regardless of one's opinion of the merits of Long's literal translation, two essays by Long which accompanied his book are worth reading: a biographical sketch of Marcus Aurelius, and more importantly, "The Philosophy of Antoninus" (that is, Marcus Aurelius). The latter is very perceptive, and in my opinion offers much insight that is not in Staniforth's essay.
  
• -- Also recommended reading is Matthew Arnold's essay on Marcus Aurelius. Long's two essays and Arnold's essay are not online. If you are interested in preparing these as online texts, get in touch and I can supply photocopies of the originals.
  

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