Theophrastus

Theophrastus [Gr.,=divinely speaking], c.372-c.287 BC, Greek philosopher, Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetics . The school flourished under his leadership. He wrote on many subjects, but his works on plants are perhaps the most important of his technical writings. His Characters, a series of sketches of various ethical types, provides a valuable picture of his time. It anticipates such studies as those by Sir Thomas Overbury, John Earle, and La Bruyère.

Theophrastus (c.372–287 bc), Greek philosopher, head of the Peripatetic School after Aristotle. His interest for English literature derives from his Characters, brief sketches of human types embodying particular faults: the toady, the over-proud, the churlish. The popularity of Theophrastus in modern times dates from I. Casaubon's Latin translation of the Characters (1592). An English rendering by John Healey appeared in 1616, but before then J. Hall enlarged Theophrastus' scope, in his Characters of Vertues and Vices (1608), and Sir T. Overbury produced, in collaboration with J. Webster, Dekker, and Donne, a volume of Characters (1614). (See also character writing.)