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Theophrastus

Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC) was a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos. His given name was ; his nickname Θεόφραστος  was given by Aristotle, his teacher, for his "divine style of expression".

He came to Athens at a young age and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus in his writings. When Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants. 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, including biology, physics, ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants (Historia Plantarum) and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on Renaissance science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sense Perception, and On Stones, as well as fragments on Physics and Metaphysics. 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.

Life
Most of the biographical information about Theophrastus was provided by Diogenes Laërtius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, written more than four hundred years after Theophrastus's time. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos. His given name was Tyrtamus (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 (from Ancient Greek Θεός 'god' and φράζειν 'to phrase', i.e. divine expression).

After receiving instruction in philosophy on Lesbos from one Alcippus, he moved to Athens, where he may have studied under Plato. 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. 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. Theophrastus probably accompanied Aristotle to Macedonia when Aristotle was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 343/2. 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, 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. Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum. Eudemus of Rhodes also had some claims to this position, and Aristoxenus is said to have resented Aristotle's choice.

Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for 35 years, and died at age 85, according to Diogenes. He is said to have remarked, "We die just when we are beginning to live".

Under his guidance, the school flourished greatly—there were at one period more than 2,000 students, Diogenes affirms—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. 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. He was honored with a public funeral, and "the whole population of Athens, honouring him greatly, followed him to the grave." He was succeeded as head of the Lyceum by Strato of Lampsacus.

Writings
From the lists of Diogenes, giving 227 titles, it appears that the activity of Theophrastus extended over the whole field of contemporary knowledge. 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. Thus Theophrastus, like Aristotle, had composed a first and second Analytic (Ἀναλυτικῶν προτέρων and Ἀναλυτικῶν ὑστέρων). He had also written books on Topics (Ἀνηγμένων τόπων, Τοπικῶν and Τὰ πρὸ τῶν τόπων); on the Analysis of Syllogisms (Περὶ ἀναλύσεως συλλογισμῶν and Περὶ συλλογισμῶν λύσεως), on Sophisms (Σοφισμάτων) and on Affirmation and Denial (Περὶ καταφάσεως καὶ ἀποφάσεως) as well as on the Natural Philosophy (Περὶ φύσεως, Περὶ φυσικῶν, Φυσικῶν and others), on Heaven (Περὶ οὐρανοῦ), and on Meteorological Phenomena (Τῆς μεταρσιολεσχίας and Μεταρσιολογικῶν).

In addition, Theophrastus wrote on the Warm and the Cold (Περὶ θερμοῦ καὶ ψυχροῦ), on Water (Περὶ ὕδατος), Fire (Περὶ πυρóς), the Sea (Περὶ θαλάττης), on Coagulation and Melting (Περὶ πήξεων καὶ τήξεων), on various phenomena of organic and spiritual life, and on the Soul (Περὶ ψυχῆς), on Experience (Περὶ ἐμπειρίας) and On Sense Perception (also known as On the Senses; Περὶ αἰσθήσεων). Likewise, we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus, which were made use of by Simplicius; and also on Xenocrates, against the Academics, and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato.

He studied general history, as we know from Plutarch's lives of Lycurgus, Solon, Aristides, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus, and Demosthenes, which were probably borrowed from the work on Lives (Περὶ βίων). 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 (see below), 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 (Πολιτικῶν and Πολιτικοῦ), we find quoted various treatises on Education (Περὶ παιδείας βασιλέως and Περὶ παιδείας), on Royalty (Περὶ βασιλείας, Περὶ παιδείας βασιλέως and Πρὸς Κάσανδρον περὶ βασιλείας), on the Best State (Περὶ τῆς ἀρίστης πολιτείας), on Political Morals (Πολιτικῶν ἐθῶν), and particularly his works on the Laws (Νόμων κατὰ στοιχεῖον, Νόμων ἐπιτομῆς and Περὶ νόμων), one of which, containing a recapitulation of the laws of various barbarian as well as Greek states, was intended to be a companion to Aristotle's outline of Politics, and must have been similar to it. He also wrote on oratory and poetry. Theophrastus, without doubt, departed further from Aristotle in his ethical writings, as also in his metaphysical investigations of motion, the soul, and God.

Besides these writings, Theophrastus wrote 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, and commentaries, partly dialogue, to which probably belonged the Erotikos (Ἐρωτικός), Megacles (Μεγακλῆς), Callisthenes (Καλλισθένης), and Megarikos (Μεγαρικός), and letters, partly books on mathematical sciences and their history.

Many of his surviving works 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 F. Hort remarks. "There is no literary charm; the sentences are mostly compressed and highly elliptical, to the point sometimes of obscurity". 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 descendants.

On plants
The most important of his books are two large botanical treatises, Enquiry into Plants (Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, generally known as Historia Plantarum), and On the Causes of Plants (Greek: Περὶ αἰτιῶν φυτικῶν, Latin: De causis plantarum), which constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and the Middle Ages, the first systemization of the botanical world; on the strength of these works some, following Linnaeus, call him the "father of botany".

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. 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.

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. The work deals mainly with the economical uses of plants rather than their medicinal uses, although the latter is sometimes mentioned. A book on wines and a book on plant smells may have once been part of the complete work.

Although these works contain many absurd and fabulous statements, they include valuable observations concerning the functions and properties of plants. Theophrastus observed the process of germination and recognized the significance of climate 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."

Theophrastus's Enquiry into Plants was first published in a Latin translation by Theodore Gaza, at Treviso, 1483; 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. Christian 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.

On moral characters
His book Characters (Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) contains thirty brief outlines of moral types. 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. 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. George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus's 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
A treatise On Sense Perception (Περὶ αἰσθήσεων) 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. 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.

Physics
Fragments of a History of Physics (Περὶ φυσικῶν ἱστοριῶν) are extant. To this class of work belong the still extant sections on Fire, on the Winds, and on the signs of Waters, Winds, and Storms.

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
The Metaphysics (anachronistic Greek title: Θεοφράστου τῶν μετὰ τὰ φυσικά), in nine chapters (also known as On First Principles), 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.

On stones
In his treatise On Stones (Περὶ λίθων), which would become a source for other lapidaries until at least the Renaissance, Theophrastus classified rocks and gems based on their behavior when heated, further grouping minerals by common properties, such as amber and magnetite, which both have the power of attraction.

Theophrastus 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.

He knew that pearls came from shellfish, that coral came from India, and speaks of the fossilized remains of organic life. 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.

Many of the rarer minerals were found in mines, and Theophrastus mentions the famous copper mines of Cyprus and the even more famous silver mines, presumably of Laurium near Athens – the basis of the wealth of the city – 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 BCE the output fell, partly owing to the Spartan occupation of Decelea from c. 413 BCE. But the mines continued to be worked, though Strabo (c. 64 BCE to c. 24 CE) records that in his time the tailings were being worked over, and Pausanias (c. 110 to c. 180) 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, 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, although he did describe lyngurium, a gemstone supposedly formed of the solidified urine of the lynx (the best ones coming from wild males), which featured in many lapidaries until it gradually disappeared from view in the 17th century. It is mistakenly attributed to Theophrastus the first record of pyroelectricity. The misconception arose soon after the discovery of the pyroelectric properties of tourmaline, which made mineralogists of the time associate the lyngurium with it. Lyngurium is described in the work of Theophrastus as being similar to amber, capable of attracting "straws and bits of wood", but without specifying any pyroelectric properties.

Philosophy
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. Many of his opinions have to be reconstructed from the works of later writers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Simplicius.

Logic
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 (κυρία λέξις kuria lexis) from metaphorical expressions, and dealt with the emotions (πάθη pathe) of speech. He further distinguished a twofold reference of speech (σχίσις schisis) to things (πράγματα pragmata) and to the hearers, and referred poetry and rhetoric to the latter.

He wrote at length on the unity of judgment, on the different kinds of negation, and on the difference between unconditional and conditional necessity. 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, partly in the proof of them, partly in the doctrine of mixture, i.e. of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion. Then, in two separate works, he dealt with the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form and on the resolution of them; and further, with hypothetical conclusions. 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. 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. For the rest, some minor deviations from the Aristotelian definitions are quoted from the Topica of Theophrastus. Closely connected with this treatise was that upon ambiguous words or ideas, which, without doubt, corresponded to book Ε of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Physics and metaphysics
Theophrastus introduced his Physics with the proof that all natural existence, being corporeal and composite, requires principles, and first and foremost, motion, as the basis of all change. 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. Time he called an accident of motion, without, it seems, viewing it, with Aristotle, as the numerical determinant of motion. 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.

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. He viewed motion, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own goal in itself (ateles), of that which only potentially exists, 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, and so referred all activities of the soul to motion: the desires and emotions to corporeal motion, judgment (kriseis) and contemplation to spiritual motion. 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. 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. 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. 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).

Ethics
Theophrastus did not allow a happiness resting merely upon virtue, or, consequently, to hold fast by the unconditional value of morality. He subordinated moral requirements to the advantage at least of a friend, 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" (vitam regit fortuna non sapientia). 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. Although, like his teacher, he preferred contemplative (theoretical), to active (practical) life, he preferred to set the latter free from the restraints of family life, etc. in a manner of which Aristotle would not have approved.

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.

The "portrait" of Theophrastus
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. 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 and photographs: a photograph of it forms the frontispiece to the Loeb Classical Library Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants vol. I, 1916. André Thevet illustrated 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.

In popular culture
A world is named Theophrastus in the 2014 Firefly graphic novel Serenity: Leaves on the Wind.

Theodor Geisel used the name "Theophrastus" as the given name of his pen-name alter ego, Dr. Seuss.

A board game named Theophrastus was released in 2001. Players compete through a series of Alchemy experiments in order to become Theophrastus's apprentice.

Works

 *  Metaphysics (or On First Principles).
 * Translated by M. van Raalte, 1993, Brill.
 * On First Principles. Translated by Dimitri Gutas, 2010, Brill.
 * Enquiry into Plants: Books 1–5. Translated by A. F. Hort, 1916. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99077-3 Vol 1 – Vol 2
 * Enquiry into Plants: Books 6–9; Treatise on Odours; Concerning Weather Signs. Translated by A. F. Hort, 1926. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99088-9
 * Recherches sur les plantes. Translated to French by Suzanne Amigues. Paris, Les Belles Lettres. 1988–2006. 5 tomes. Tome 1, Livres I-II. 1988. LVIII-146 p. Tome II, Livres III-IV. 1989. 306 p. Tome III, Livres V-VI. 1993. 212 p. Tome IV, Livres VII-VIII, 2003. 238 p. Tome V, Livres IX. 2006. LXX-400 p. First edition in French. Identifications are up-to-date, and carefully checked with botanists. Greek names with identifications are on Pl@ntUse.
 * De Causis Plantarum. Translated by B. Einarson and G. Link, 1989–1990. Loeb Classical Library. 3 volumes: ISBN 0-674-99519-8, ISBN 0-674-99523-6, ISBN 0-674-99524-4.
 * On Characters
 * Translated by R. C. Jebb, 1870.
 * Translated by J. M. Edmonds, 1929, with parallel text.
 * Translated by J. Rusten, 2003. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 0-674-99603-8
 * On Sweat, On Dizziness and On Fatigue. Translated by W. Fortenbaugh, R. Sharples, M. Sollenberger. Brill 2002. ISBN 90-04-12890-5
 * On Weather Signs.
 * Translated by J. G. Wood, G. J. Symons, 1894.
 * Edited by Sider David and Brunschön Carl Wolfram. Brill 2007.
 * On Stones
 * Translated by J. G. Wood, G. J. Symons, 1894.
 * Edited by Sider David and Brunschön Carl Wolfram. Brill 2007.
 * On Stones

Modern editions

 * Theophrastus' Characters: An Ancient Take on Bad Behavior by James Romm (author), Pamela Mensch (translator), and André Carrilho (illustrator), Callaway Arts & Entertainment, 2018.

Brill
The International Theophrastus Project started by Brill Publishers in 1992.

 * 1. Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought and Influence (two volumes), edited by William Fortenbaugh et al., Leiden: Brill, 1992.
 * 1.1. Life, Writings, Various Reports, Logic, Physics, Metaphysics, Theology, Mathematics [Texts 1–264].
 * 1.2. Psychology, Human Physiology, Living Creatures, Botany, Ethics, Religion, Politics, Rhetoric and Poetics, Music, Miscellanea [Texts 265–741].

 * ff. 9 volumes are planned; the published volumes are:
 * 1. Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought and Influence — Commentary, Leiden: Brill, 1994
 * 2. Logic [Texts 68–136], by Pamela Huby (2007); with contributions on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas.
 * 3.1. Sources on Physics (Texts 137–223), by R. W. Sharples (1998).
 * 4. Psychology (Texts 265–327), by Pamela Huby (1999); 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 (1994).
 * 6.1. Sources on Ethics [Texts 436–579B], by William W. Fortenbaugh; with contributions on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas (2011).
 * 8. Sources on Rhetoric and Poetics (Texts 666–713), by William W. Fortenbaugh (2005); with contributions on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas.
 * 9.1. Sources On Music (Texts 714-726C), by Massimo Raffa (2018).
 * 9.2. Sources on Discoveries and Beginnings, Proverbs et al. (Texts 727–741), by William W. Fortenbaugh (2014).

General and cited references

Attribution:

title: Theophrastus


text:
Pachet

Pachet (also known as Pacham and Pajat) is a village in Ashrestaq Rural District, Yaneh Sar District, Behshahr County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 169, in 53 families.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pachet


text:
Petbe

In Egyptian mythology, Petbe was the god of revenge, worshipped in the area around Akhmim, in central Egypt. His name translates as Sky-Ba, roughly meaning "Soul of the Sky", or "Mood of the sky". However, Petbe may be a Chaldean deity introduced by immigrant workers from the Levant, with his name being a corruption of the hybrid phrase Pet-(Ba'al), meaning "Lord of the sky". Early Christians compared Petbe to the Greek god Cronus.

title: Petbe


text:
Bo Leuf

Bo Arne Leuf (July 9, 1952 – April 24, 2009) was co-author of the book The Wiki Way (2001), written in collaboration with wiki inventor Ward Cunningham. His book Peer To Peer (2002) discusses different peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions both from a technical and legal point of view.

Bo Leuf lived in Gothenburg, Sweden. He was a candidate for the Pirate Party in the Swedish general election in 2006 and was also on its board as treasurer.

In 1971, he came from Västernorrland to Gothenburg to study engineering physics at Chalmers University.

In 1979, he opened a book shop called Wizard in Gothenburg. Later, when he moved to Malmö in 1992, he opened a new shop, this time under the name of Daggshimmer. At this time in Malmö, he also helped his wife and mother-in-law to run the Demaret's School of Languages, a former Berlitz language school still using the same teaching method. He got married on June 2, 1984 and had two children. He died of cancer on April 24, 2009.

Publications

 * Bo Leuf, Ward Cunningham, The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web, Addison-Wesley (April, 2001) ISBN 0-201-71499-X
 * Bo Leuf, Outlook in a Nutshell: A Power User's Quick Reference, ISBN 1-56592-704-4
 * Bo Leuf, Peer to Peer: Collaborating and Sharing over the Internet, ISBN 0-201-76732-5
 * Bo Leuf, The Semantic Web: Crafting Infrastructure for Agency, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-470-01522-5

title: Bo Leuf


text:
Renpet

Renpet was, in the Egyptian language, the word for "year". Its hieroglyph was figuratively depicted in art as a woman wearing a palm shoot (symbolizing time) over her head. She was often referred to as the Mistress of Eternity and also personified fertility, youth and spring. The glyph regularly appears on monuments and documents throughout Egyptian history as the beginning of the phrase recording the regnal year of the pharaoh.

title: Renpet


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Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock 'n' roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, and early recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. "Crazy Arms" sold 300,000 copies in the Southern United States, but it was his 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" that shot Lewis to worldwide fame. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential".

His rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old first cousin once removed. His popularity quickly eroded following the scandal, and with few exceptions, such as a cover of Ray Charles's "What'd I Say", he did not have much chart success in the early 1960s. His live performances at this time were increasingly wild and energetic. His 1964 live album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg is regarded by many music journalists and fans as one of the wildest and greatest live rock albums ever. In 1968, Lewis made a transition into country music and had hits with songs such as "Another Place, Another Time". This reignited his career, and throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, he regularly topped the country-western charts; throughout his seven-decade career, Lewis had 30 songs reach the Top 10 on the Billboard Country and Western Chart. His No. 1 country hits included "To Make Love Sweeter for You", "There Must Be More to Love Than This", "Would You Take Another Chance on Me", and "Me and Bobby McGee".

Lewis's successes continued throughout the decades, and he embraced his rock and roll past with songs such as a cover of The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and Mack Vickery's "Rockin' My Life Away". In the 21st century, Lewis continued to tour worldwide and released new albums. His 2006 album Last Man Standing was his best-selling release, with over a million copies worldwide. This was followed by Mean Old Man in 2010, another of his bestselling albums.

Lewis had a dozen gold records in rock and country. He won four Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. Lewis was inducted into the inaugural class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and his pioneering contribution to the genre was recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022. In 1989, his life was chronicled in the movie Great Balls of Fire, starring Dennis Quaid. In 2003, Rolling Stone listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology at number 242 on their list of "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2004, they ranked him No. 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Lewis was the last surviving member of Sun Records' Million Dollar Quartet and the album Class of '55, which also included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley.

Music critic Robert Christgau said of Lewis: "His drive, his timing, his offhand vocal power, his unmistakable boogie-plus piano, and his absolute confidence in the face of the void make Jerry Lee the quintessential rock and roller."

Early life
Jerry Lee Lewis was born on September 29, 1935, to Elmo Kidd Lewis Sr. and Mary "Mamie" Herron Lewis in Ferriday, Louisiana. He grew up in an impoverished farming family in Eastern Louisiana. In his youth, he began playing the piano with two of his cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a popular country music singer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular televangelist). His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Lewis was influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, Carl McVoy (who later recorded with Bill Black's Combo), the radio, and the sounds from Haney's Big House, a black juke joint across the tracks. On November 19, 1949, Lewis made his first public performance of his career, playing with a country and western band at a car dealership in Ferriday. The hit of his set was his performance of R&B artist Stick McGhee's "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee". On the live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis is heard naming Moon Mullican as an artist who inspired him.

His mother enrolled him at the Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas, so that he could sing evangelical songs exclusively. When Lewis daringly played a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God Is Real" at a church assembly, it ended his association with the school the same night. Pearry Green, then president of the student body, related how during a talent show Lewis played some "worldly" music. The next morning, the dean of the school called Lewis and Green into his office to expel them. After that incident, he went home and started playing at clubs in and around Ferriday and Natchez, Mississippi, becoming part of the burgeoning new rock and roll sound and cutting his first demo recording in 1952 for Cosimo Matassa in New Orleans. Around 1955, he traveled to Nashville, where he played in clubs and attempted to build interest, but was turned down by the Grand Ole Opry, as he was already at the Louisiana Hayride country stage and radio show in Shreveport.

J&M Studio
Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana. He covered Lefty Frizzell's "Don't Stay Away (Till Love Grows Cold)" and his own instrumental composition "Jerry's Boogie" (a.k.a. New Orleans Boogie).

Sun Records
In November 1956, Lewis traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to audition for Sun Records. Label owner Sam Phillips was in Florida, but producer and engineer Jack Clement recorded Lewis's rendition of Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" and his own composition "End of the Road". In December 1956, Lewis began recording prolifically as a solo artist and as a session musician for other Sun artists, including Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. His distinctive piano playing can be heard on many tracks recorded at Sun in late 1956 and early 1957, including Carl Perkins's "Matchbox", "Your True Love", and "Put Your Cat Clothes On" and Billy Lee Riley's "Flyin' Saucers Rock'n'Roll".

On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on Phillips to pay a social visit while Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks with Lewis backing him on piano. Johnny Cash was also there watching Perkins. The four then started an impromptu jam session and Phillips left the tape running. These recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, were released on CD as Million Dollar Quartet. Tracks also include Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and "Paralyzed", Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", and Pat Boone's "Don't Forbid Me". Lewis's own singles (on which he was billed as "Jerry Lee Lewis And His Pumping Piano") advanced his career as a soloist during 1957, with hits such as "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", a Big Maybelle cover, and "Great Balls of Fire", his biggest hit, bringing him international fame and criticism of the songs, which prompted some radio stations to boycott them. In 2005, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. According to several first-hand sources, including Johnny Cash, Lewis, a devout Christian, was troubled by the sinful nature of his own material, which he believed was leading him and his audience to Hell. This aspect of Lewis's character was depicted in Waylon Payne's portrayal of Lewis in the 2005 film Walk the Line, based on Cash's autobiographies.

As part of his stage act, Lewis pounded the keys with his heel, kicked the piano bench aside and played standing, raking his hands up and down the keys, sat on the keyboard and stood on the piano. He told the Pop Chronicles that kicking over the bench originally happened by accident, but when it got a favorable response, he kept it in the act. His inaugural television appearance, in which he demonstrated some of these moves, was on The Steve Allen Show on July 28, 1957, where he played "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On".

His dynamic performance style can be seen in films such as High School Confidential (he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck), and Jamboree. Cub Koda called him "rock & roll's first great wild man" and also "rock & roll's first great eclectic". Classical composer Michael Nyman has also cited Lewis's style as the progenitor of his own aesthetic.

In 1960, Phillips opened a new state-of-the-art studio at 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, abandoning the old Union Avenue studio where Phillips had recorded B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Lewis, Johnny Cash, and others, and also opened a studio in Nashville. It was at the latter studio that Lewis recorded his only major hit during this period, a rendition of Ray Charles's "What'd I Say" in 1961. In Europe, other updated versions of "Sweet Little Sixteen" (September 1962 UK) and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" (March 1963) entered the hit parade. On popular EPs, "Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes", "I've Been Twistin, "Money", and "Hello Josephine" also became turntable hits, especially in nascent discothèques. Another recording of Lewis playing an instrumental boogie arrangement of the Glenn Miller Orchestra's "In the Mood" was issued on the Phillips International label under the pseudonym "The Hawk".

Marriage controversy
Lewis's turbulent personal life was hidden from the public until a May 1958 British tour where Ray Berry, a news agency reporter at London's Heathrow Airport (the only journalist present), learned about Lewis's third wife, Myra Gale Brown. She is Lewis's first cousin once removed and was 13 years old when they married—though Lewis, who was 22 years old at the time, claimed she was actually 15. The publicity caused an uproar, and the tour was canceled after only three concerts.

Smash Records
Lewis's Sun recording contract ended in 1963, and he joined Smash Records, where he made several rock recordings that did not further his career. The team at Smash (a division of Mercury Records) came up with "I'm on Fire", a song that they felt would be perfect for Lewis and, as Colin Escott writes in the sleeve to the retrospective A Half Century of Hits, "Mercury held the presses, thinking they had found Lewis's comeback hit, and it might have happened if the Beatles hadn't arrived in America, changing radio playlists almost overnight. Mercury didn't really know what to do with Lewis after that." One of Smash's first decisions was to record a retread of his Sun hits, Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis, which was inspired by the continuing enthusiasm European fans had shown for Lewis's firebrand rock and roll. In June 1963, Lewis returned to the UK for the first time since the scandal that nearly ended his career five years earlier, to headline a performance on the MV Royal Daffodil, for a cross-channel rock and roll cruise from Southend, Essex, to Boulogne, France. For this performance, he was backed by Ritchie Blackmore and the Outlaws. None of Lewis's early Smash albums, including The Return of Rock, Memphis Beat, and Soul My Way, were commercial successes.

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
One major success during these lost years was the concert album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, recorded with the Nashville Teens in 1964, which is considered one of the greatest live albums ever. In Joe Bonomo's book Lost and Found, producer Siggi Loch stated that the recording setup was uncomplicated, with microphones placed as close to the instruments as possible and a stereo mic placed in the audience to capture the ambience. The results were sonically astonishing, with Bonomo observing, "Detractors complain of the album's crashing noisiness, the lack of subtlety with which Jerry Lee revisits the songs, the fact that the piano is mixed too loudly, but what is certain is that Siggi Loch on this spring evening captured something brutally honest about the Killer, about the primal and timeless centre of the very best rock & roll..." The album showcases Lewis's skills as a pianist and singer, honed by relentless touring. In a 5-out-of-5-stars review, Milo Miles wrote in Rolling Stone magazine that "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg is not an album, it's a crime scene: Jerry Lee Lewis slaughters his rivals in a thirteen-song set that feels like one long convulsion."

Country comeback
Frustrated by Smash's inability to score a hit, Lewis was planning on leaving the label when promotions manager Eddie Kilroy pitched the idea of cutting a pure country record in Nashville. With nothing to lose, Lewis agreed to record the Jerry Chesnut song "Another Place, Another Time", which was released as a single on March 9, 1968, and, to everyone's amazement, shot up the country charts. At the time of the release, Lewis had been playing Iago in a rock and roll adaptation of Othello called Catch My Soul in Los Angeles but was soon rushed back to Nashville to record another batch of songs with producer Jerry Kennedy. What followed was a string of hits that no one could have predicted, although country music always remained a major part of Lewis's repertoire. As Colin Escott observes in the sleeve to the 1995 compilation Killer Country, the conversion to country music in 1968 "looked at the time like a radical shift, but it was neither as abrupt nor as unexpected as it seemed. Jerry had always recorded country music, and his country breakthrough 'Another Place, Another Time' had been preceded by countless country records starting with his first, 'Crazy Arms', in 1956." The last time Lewis had had a song on the country charts was with "Pen and Paper" in 1964, which had reached number 36, but "Another Place, Another Time" would go all the way to number 4 and remain on the charts for 17 weeks.

Between 1968 and 1977, Lewis had 17 Top 10 hit singles on the Billboard country chart, including four chart-toppers. Hits include "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out of Me)", "To Make Love Sweeter For You", "She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me)", "Since I Met You Baby", "Once More With Feeling", "One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)", and "Sometimes A Memory Ain't Enough". The production on his early country albums, such as Another Place, Another Time and She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye, was sparse, quite different from the slick "Nashville sound" that was predominant on country radio at the time, and also expressed a full commitment by Lewis to a country audience. The songs still featured Lewis's inimitable piano flourishes, but critics were most taken aback by the rock and roll pioneer's effortlessly soulful vocals, which possessed an emotional resonance on par with the most respected country singers of the time, such as George Jones and Merle Haggard. In his book Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, biographer Rick Bragg notes that the songs Lewis was recording "were of the kind they were starting to call 'hard country', not because it had a rock beat or crossed over into rock in a real way, but because it was more substantial than the cloying, overproduced mess out there on country radio".

In a remarkable turnaround, Lewis became the most bankable country star in the world. He was so huge in 1970 that his former Smash producer Shelby Singleton, who purchased Sun Records from Sam Phillips in July 1969, wasted no time in repackaging many of Lewis's old country recordings with such effectiveness that many fans assumed they were recent releases. One of his later unreleased Sun recordings, "One Minute Past Eternity", was issued as a single and soared to number 2 on the country chart, following Lewis's recent Mercury hit "She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye". Singleton would milk these unreleased recordings for years, following The Golden Cream of the Country with A Taste of Country later in 1970.

Grand Ole Opry appearance
Lewis played the Grand Ole Opry only once, on January 20, 1973. As Colin Escott writes in the liner notes to A Half Century of Hits, he had maintained an ambivalence to Music City ever since he was turned away as an aspiring musician before his glory days at Sun Records: "It was 18 years since he had left Nashville broke and disheartened...Lewis was never truly accepted in Nashville. He didn't move there and didn't schmooze there. He didn't fit in with the family values crowd. Lewis family values weren't necessarily worse, but they were different."

As recounted in a 2015 online Rolling Stone article by Beville Dunkerly, Lewis opened with his comeback single "Another Place, Another Time". Ignoring his allotted time constraints—and, thus, commercial breaks—Lewis played for 40 minutes (the average Opry performance is two songs, for about eight minutes of stage time maximum) and invited Del Wood—the one member of the Opry who had been kind to him when he had been there as a teenager—out on stage to sing with him. He also blasted through "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On", "Workin' Man Blues", "Good Golly, Miss Molly", and a number of other classics.

The Session and Southern Roots
Lewis returned to the pop charts with "Me and Bobby McGee" in 1971 and "Chantilly Lace" in 1972, and this, coupled with a revitalized public interest in vintage rock and roll, inspired Mercury to fly Lewis to London in 1973 to record with a cadre of British and Irish musicians, including Rory Gallagher, Kenney Jones, and Albert Lee. By all accounts the sessions were tense. The remake of Lewis's old Sun cut "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" was the album's hit single, reaching number 20 on the Billboard country chart and peaking at number 41 on the pop chart. The Session was his highest pop charting album since 1964's Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis, hitting number 37. It did far better on the country albums chart, rising to number 4. Later that year, he went to Memphis and recorded Southern Roots: Back Home to Memphis, a soul-infused rock album produced by Huey Meaux. According to Rick Bragg's authorized 2014 biography, "the Killer" was in a foul mood when he showed up at Trans Maximus Studios in Memphis to record: "During these sessions, he insulted the producer, threatened to kill a photographer, and drank and medicated his way into but not out of a fog." During one exchange that can be heard on the 2013 reissue Southern Roots: The Original Sessions, Meaux asks Lewis, "Do you wanna try one?", meaning a take, to which Lewis replies, "If you got enough fuckin' sense to cut it." Lewis was still pumping out country albums, although the hits were beginning to dry up. His last big hit with Mercury was "Middle Age Crazy", which made it to number 4 in 1977.

Later career
In 1979, Lewis switched record labels to Elektra and produced the critically acclaimed Jerry Lee Lewis, although sales were disappointing. In 1986, Lewis was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Although looking frail after several hospitalizations due to stomach problems, Lewis was responsible for beginning an unplanned jam at the end of the evening, which was incorporated into all future events. That year, he returned to Sun Studio in Memphis to team up with Orbison, Cash, and Perkins along with longtime admirers like John Fogerty to create the album Class of '55.

In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll, Great Balls of Fire!, brought him back into the public eye, especially when he decided to re-record all his songs for the movie soundtrack. The film was based on the book by Lewis's ex-wife, Myra Gale Lewis, and starred Dennis Quaid as Lewis, Winona Ryder as Myra, and Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Swaggart. The movie focuses on Lewis's early career and his relationship with Myra and ends with the scandal of the late 1950s. A year later, in 1990, Lewis made minor news when a new song he recorded called "It Was the Whiskey Talkin' (Not Me)" was included in the soundtrack to the hit movie Dick Tracy. The song is also heard in the movie, playing on the radio. The public downfall of his cousin, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart around the same time, resulted in more adverse publicity to a troubled family. Swaggart is also a piano player, as is another cousin, country music star Mickey Gilley. All three listened to the same music in their youth and frequented Haney's Big House, the Ferriday club that featured black blues acts. Lewis and Swaggart had a complex relationship over the years.

In 1998, Lewis toured Europe with Chuck Berry and Little Richard. On February 12, 2005, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by The Recording Academy. On September 26, 2006, a new album titled Last Man Standing was released, featuring many of rock and roll's elite as guest stars. Receiving positive reviews, the album charted on four different Billboard charts, including a two-week stay at number one on the Indie charts. A DVD entitled Last Man Standing Live, featuring concert footage with many guest artists, was released in March 2007.

In October 2008, as part of a successful European tour, Lewis appeared at two London shows: a special private show at the 100 Club on October 25, and at the London Forum on October 28 with Wanda Jackson and his sister, Linda Gail Lewis. In August 2009, in advance of his new album, a single entitled "Mean Old Man" was released for download. It was written by Kris Kristofferson. An EP featuring this song and four more was also released on November 11. On October 29, 2009, Lewis opened the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

In May 2013, Lewis opened a new club on Beale Street in Memphis. Lewis was still considered actively performing in concert, though he had to cancel all shows following his February 28, 2019, stroke, waiting for his doctors' go-ahead.

In 2017, Lewis had a personal presence at The Country Music Television Skyville Live show. It was a specially recorded performance featuring a whole array of artists paying tribute to the music of Lewis.

In March 2020, it was announced that Lewis, together with producer T-Bone Burnett and guitarist James Burton, was recording a new album of gospel covers. It was the first time he entered a recording studio following his stroke. , it is unknown how much progress was made with this gospel album, or if it was ever completed, as nothing from these sessions has been released; Lewis later recorded another gospel album with cousin Jimmy Swaggart that was unrelated to the 2020 project with Burnett and Burton.

On October 27, 2020, to celebrate Lewis's 85th birthday, a livestream aired on YouTube, Facebook, and his official website. The livestream special, Whole Lotta Celebratin' Goin' On, featured appearances and performances by Willie Nelson, Elton John, Mike Love, Priscilla Presley, Joe Walsh, and others. John Stamos served as the host.

Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind is a documentary on Lewis, released in 2022 and directed by Ethan Coen. That same year, Lewis and his cousin Jimmy Swaggart collaborated on and released a gospel album, called The Boys from Ferriday.

Accolades
Along with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, Lewis received the first Grammy Award in the spoken-word category for the very rare album of interviews released with some early copies of the Class of '55 album in 1986. The original Sun cut of "Great Balls of Fire" was elected to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and Lewis's Sun recording of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" received this honor in 1999. Only recordings that are at least 25 years old and have left a lasting impression can receive this honor. On February 12, 2005, Lewis received the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award the day before the Recording Academy's main Grammy Awards ceremony, which he also attended.

In June 1989, Lewis was honored for his contribution to the recording industry with a star along Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On October 10, 2007, Lewis received the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's American Music Masters Award. His next album, Mean Old Man, was released in September 2010 and reached No. 30 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

On November 5, 2007, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, honored Lewis with six days of conferences, interviews, a DVD premiere, and film clips, dedicated to him and entitled The Life And Music of Jerry Lee Lewis. On November 10, the week culminated with a tribute concert compered by Kris Kristofferson. Lewis was present to accept the American Music Masters Award and closed his own tribute show with a rendition of "Over the Rainbow". On February 10, 2008, he appeared with John Fogerty and Little Richard on the 50th Grammy Awards, performing "Great Balls of Fire" in a medley with "Good Golly Miss Molly". On June 4, 2008, Lewis was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame and appeared on A Capitol Fourth and performed the finale's final act with a medley of "Roll Over Beethoven", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", and "Great Balls of Fire".

In December 2019, Lewis was honored with a Mississippi Country Music Trail marker at his ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi to celebrate his contributions to country music.

In May 2022, Lewis was announced as a member-elect to the Country Music Hall of Fame, to be inducted in October 2022. "This year's inductees are trailblazers who each paved their own unique path within country music," Sarah Trahern, CMA chief executive officer, said. "Jerry Lee, Keith (Whitley), and Joe (Galante) each found their musical callings early in life and displayed a strong-minded and fierce passion for music making. In very different ways, they all have left a lasting impact on the industry and generations of fans alike. I am thrilled to welcome this deserving class to the Country Music Hall of Fame." "I'm just overwhelmed that they asked me here today," Lewis, 86, said during an event earlier that week at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, adding that his career had taught him to "be a good person and treat people right."

Piano style
Lewis was an incendiary showman who often played with his fists, elbows, feet, and backside, sometimes climbing on top of the piano during gigs and even apocryphally setting it on fire. Like Chuck Berry's guitar playing, Lewis's piano style became synonymous with rock and roll, having influenced generations of piano players.

In a 2013 interview with Leah Harper, Elton John recalls that up until "Great Balls of Fire", "the piano playing that I had heard had been more sedate. My dad collected George Shearing records, but this was the first time I heard someone beat the shit out of a piano. When I saw Little Richard at the Harrow Granada, he played it standing up, but Jerry Lee Lewis actually jumped on the piano! This was astonishing to me, that people could do that. Those records had such a huge effect on me, and they were just so great. I learned to play like that." Lewis was primarily known for his "boogie-woogie" style, which is characterized by a regular left-hand bass figure and dancing beat, but his command of the instrument and highly individualistic style set him apart. Appearing on Memphis Sounds with George Klein in 2011, Lewis credited his older piano-playing cousin Carl McVoy as being a crucial influence, stating, "He was a great piano player, a great singer, and a nice-looking man, carried himself real well. I miss Carl very much." Lewis also cited Moon Mullican as a source of inspiration. Although almost entirely self-taught, Lewis conceded to biographer Rich Bragg in 2014 that Paul Whitehead, a blind pianist from Meadville, Mississippi, was another key influence on him in his earliest days playing clubs.

Relationships and children
Lewis was married seven times, including bigamous marriages and a marriage with his underage cousin. He had six children during his marriages.

When Jerry Lee Lewis was 16, he married Dorothy Barton, the daughter of a preacher. The union lasted from February 1952 to October 1953.

Lewis's second marriage to Sally Jane Mitcham in September 1953, was of dubious validity because it occurred 23 days before his divorce from Barton was final. They had two children: Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. (1954–1973) and Ronnie Guy Lewis (b. 1956). After four years, he filed for divorce in October 1957. Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. died in 1973, at the age of 19, when the Jeep he was driving overturned.

His third marriage was to 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, his first cousin once removed, on December 12, 1957. His divorce from Jane Mitcham was not finalized before the ceremony took place, so he remarried Brown on June 4, 1958. They had two children: Steve Allen Lewis (1959–1962) and Phoebe Allen Lewis (b. 1963). Brown was only 14 years old when their son was born. In 1962, Steve Allen Lewis drowned in a swimming pool accident at the age of 3. In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse, stating that she had been "subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable."

His fourth marriage was to Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, from October 1971 to June 8, 1982. Pate drowned in a swimming pool at the home of a friend with whom she was staying, several weeks before divorce proceedings could be finalized. They had one daughter, Lori Lee Lewis (b. 1972).

Mary Kathy "K.K." Jones of San Antonio, Texas, testified in court during Lewis's income tax evasion trial in 1984 that she lived with him from 1980 to 1983.

Lewis's fifth marriage, to Shawn Stephens, lasted 77 days, from June to August 1983, ending with her death from an overdose of methadone. Journalist Richard Ben Cramer alleged that Lewis abused and may have killed her, neither of which was proven.

His sixth marriage, to Kerrie McCarver, lasted 21 years, from April 1984 to June 2005. They had one child: Jerry Lee Lewis III (b. 1987).

In 1993, Lewis moved to Ireland with his family in what was suggested (but denied) to be a move to avoid issues with the Internal Revenue Service. He lived in a rented house on Westminster Road in Foxrock, Dublin, and during his time there was sued by the German company Neue Constantin Film Production GmbH for failure to appear at a concert in Munich in 1993. Lewis returned to the U.S. in 1997 after his tax issues had been resolved by Irish promoter Kieran Cavanagh.

Lewis lived on a ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi, with his family.

Lewis married his seventh wife, Judith Lewis (née Brown, Myra Gale Brown's brother's former wife), on March 9, 2012. The next day, Lewis severed business ties with his daughter, Phoebe Lewis-Loftin, who was his manager, and revoked her power of attorney. In 2017, Lewis sued his daughter and her husband Zeke Loftin, claiming that she owed him "substantial sums of money". In the lawsuit, Lewis, his wife Judith Lewis, and his son Jerry Lee Lewis III also claimed Loftin defamed them on Facebook. Lewis-Loftin and her husband counter-sued, claiming Judith Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis III interfered in the business relationship. In April 2019, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers ruled that most of the claims were barred by a three-year statute of limitations except the defamation claims.

Religious beliefs
As a teenager, Lewis studied at the Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas, before being thrown out for playing a 'worldly' boogie-woogie version of "My God Is Real", and that early incident foreshadowed his lifelong conflict over his faith in God and his love of playing "the devil's music". Lewis had a recorded argument with Sam Phillips during the recording session for "Great Balls of Fire", a song he initially refused to record because he considered it blasphemous ("How can... How can the devil save souls? What are you talkin' about?" he asks Phillips during one heated exchange.) During the famous Million Dollar Quartet jam involving Lewis, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash, they performed several gospel songs. Lewis's biographer Rick Bragg explains that part of the reason the recording only features Lewis and Elvis singing is because "only Elvis and Jerry Lee [were] raised in the Assembly of God", and Johnny and Carl didn't really know the words... they was Baptists', [Lewis] said, and therefore deprived."

In the 1990 documentary The Jerry Lee Lewis Story, Lewis said to the interviewer, "The Bible doesn't even speak of religion. No word of religion is even in the Bible. Sanctification! Are you sanctified? Have you been saved? See, I was a good preacher, I know my Bible? I find myself falling short of the glory of God."

Gospel music was a staple of his performing repertoire. After a string of hit country albums, he recorded a gospel album for the first time in 1970 (it was released in 1971).

Lewis was also a cousin of the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

Graceland arrest

On September 29, 1976 (Lewis's 41st birthday), Lewis fired a .357 Magnum at a Coke bottle in his bedroom. The bullet ricocheted and accidentally hit bassist Butch Owens in the chest. Owens survived.

On November 23, 1976, Lewis was arrested outside Elvis Presley's Graceland home for allegedly intending to shoot him. In Rick Bragg's 2014 authorized biography, Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, Lewis said that the reclusive Presley had been trying to reach him and finally did on November 23, imploring him to "come out to the house." Lewis replied that he would if he had time, but that he was busy trying to get his father, Elmo, out of jail in Tunica for driving under the influence. Later that night, Lewis was at a Memphis nightclub called the Vapors drinking champagne when he was given a gun. Lewis suddenly remembered that Elvis wanted to see him and, climbing aboard his new Lincoln Continental with the loaded pistol on the dash and a bottle of champagne under his arm, tore off for Graceland. Just before three o'clock in the morning, Lewis accidentally smashed into the famous Graceland gates.

Presley's astonished cousin Harold Lloyd was manning the gate and watched Lewis attempt to hurl the champagne bottle out the car window, not realizing the window was rolled up, smashing both. Bragg reports that Lewis denies ever intending to do Presley harm, that the two were friends, but "Elvis, watching on the closed-circuit television, told guards to call the police. The Memphis police found the gun in the car and put Lewis, protesting, hollering, threatening them, away in handcuffs." Lewis said, "The cops asked Elvis, 'What do you want us to do? And Elvis told 'em, 'Lock him up.' That hurt my feelings. To be scared of me – knowin' me the way he did – was ridiculous." Lewis was charged with carrying a pistol and public drunkenness. Released on a $250 bond, his defiant mugshot was wired around the world. Presley himself died at Graceland nine months later.

Debt
In 1979, the IRS seized property from Lewis to compensate a $274,000 tax debt. The property included several automobiles, a tractor, five motorcycles, jewelry, musical instruments, home entertainment equipment, and firearms. In 1980, an auction was held, but only 150 potential bidders showed up. The auction amassed $91,382, a third of the debt.

In 1984, Lewis was found innocent of evading taxes, but he still owed the IRS money. The next year, the IRS seized property from his Nesbit, Mississippi ranch.

In 1988, Lewis filed for bankruptcy, petitioning that he was more than $3 million in debt, including $2 million he owed to the IRS.

Health and death
Lewis had a minor stroke in Memphis on February 28, 2019. He had to cancel several appearances.

Lewis died at his home on October 28, 2022, in Nesbit, Mississippi, at the age of 87. His death was mistakenly reported by TMZ two days before he died, with a representative stating that TMZ had reported "erroneously off of an anonymous tip."

Lewis' funeral was held on November 5, 2022, in his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana. The service was officiated by his cousin Jimmy Swaggart and Swaggart's son.

Selected discography

 * Jerry Lee Lewis (1958)
 * Jerry Lee's Greatest! (1962)
 * Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964)
 * The Return of Rock (1965)
 * Country Songs for City Folks/All Country (1965)
 * Memphis Beat (1966)
 * Soul My Way (1967)
 * Another Place, Another Time (1968)
 * She Still Comes Around (1969)
 * Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. 1 (1969)
 * Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. 2 (1969)
 * The Golden Cream of the Country (1969)
 * She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye (1970)
 * A Taste of Country (1970)
 * There Must Be More to Love Than This (1971)
 * Touching Home (1971)
 * Would You Take Another Chance on Me? (1971)
 * The Killer Rocks On (1972)
 * Who's Gonna Play This Old Piano? (1972)
 * The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists (1973)
 * Sometimes a Memory Ain't Enough (1973)
 * Southern Roots: Back Home to Memphis (1973)
 * I-40 Country (1974)
 * Boogie Woogie Country Man (1975)
 * Odd Man In (1975)
 * Country Class (1976)
 * Country Memories (1977)
 * Jerry Lee Keeps Rockin' (1978)
 * Jerry Lee Lewis (1979)
 * When Two Worlds Collide (1980)
 * Killer Country (1980)
 * Class of '55 (1986)
 * Young Blood (1995)
 * Last Man Standing (2006)
 * Last Man Standing Live (2007)
 * Mean Old Man (2010)
 * Rock and Roll Time (2014)
 * The Boys from Ferriday [with Jimmy Swaggart, credited as Jimmy Lee & Jerry Lee] (2022)

Compositions
Lewis wrote or co-wrote the following songs: "End of the Road" (1956), "Lewis Boogie" (1956), "Pumpin' Piano Rock" (1957), "Friday Night" (1957), "High School Confidential" (1958), "Memory of You" (1958), "Baby Baby Bye Bye" (1960; although Discogs credits Jerry Lee Lewis and Huey "Piano" Smith as the songwriters, the song was copyrighted in 1960 as by Lewis Smith), "Lewis Workout" (1960), "He Took It Like a Man" (1963, from the 1967 album Soul My Way), "Baby, Hold Me Close" (1965) from the 1965 album The Return of Rock, "What a Heck of a Mess" (1966), "Lincoln Limousine" (1966), "Alvin" (1970), "Wall Around Heaven" from the 1972 album Who's Gonna Play This Old Piano?, "Rockin' Jerry Lee" (1980, the B-side of "Honky Tonk Stuff", from the album When Two Worlds Collide), "Pilot Baby" (1983), "Crown Victoria Custom '51" (1995), released as a Sire 45 single B-side, and "Ol' Glory" (2006) from the album Last Man Standing.

title: Jerry Lee Lewis