2023-09-26 02:00:00
The so-called “Parallel Lives” of the Greek historian and moralist Plutarch is universally famous and known, where the numerous and different famous lives of antiquity converge in a moral parallelism as indicated by the title of the work: “Life of the illustrious men of Greece and of Rome.” Centuries later, the Madrid poet Manuel Quintana, (1772-1857), in his volume “Lives of the Famous Spaniards” constructed his historical investigation in imitation of that of Plutarch, although his plan was much broader and more ambitious, he only reached write nine biographies. Thus successively we arrive at the 19th century, more precisely in England in the Victorian era, where critics and literary historians of that period showed a special predilection for drawing parallels between the most prominent writers of their lives. Consequently, in the same stage and country, the parallel lives of William Thackeray and Charles Dickens were on each other’s heels even in their short difference of months on the date of their births. The marriage of the author of Vanity Fair took place at the same time that the wedding of the creator of Oliver Twist was consummated, even their married life was difficult and stormy. There are circumstances that further favored this reciprocity, which consisted of the close connection with journalism and those recognized for their literary production as the innovators of the novel of their time and the country. Thackeray’s death occurred suddenly when he had just passed the age of 52, as a result of a life full of tensions and anxieties. Years later, Dickens suffered the same fate; Also worn out by work and growing restlessness, he met an unforeseen end. The Argentine writer and diplomat Octavio R. Amadeo (1878-1955) referred in his biography of the eminent and distinguished politician Lisandro de la Torre, that 20 centuries earlier, the historian Plutarco would have compared the life of the “Fiscal of the Republic” and that his The Roman orator Cato would be similar, adding that if parallel lives existed in our history, that of Don Lysander would be that of the tribune Aristobulus del Valle. Currently, parallel lives seem to have stopped running simultaneously as equidistance has been lost and disappeared, causing a continuous derailment, separating us from reason and good judgment.
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