lucretius on the nature of things best translation

As poetry, it is almost as varied: it contains superb lyrical passages in a descriptive, idyllic, or hymnic vein, along with tracts of abstract-and at times arid-philosophical verse, and there are fiercely satirical and polemical passages as well. It incorporates a metaphysics of nature and a system of physical science a moral philosophy with practical guidance on living numerous observations on natural history a conjectural history of human society and a powerful statement on religion, culminating in a denial of human immortality and, to all intents and purposes, of the gods. For De rerum natura contains so many and disparate strands that it has of necessity appealed in part to many, but as a whole to few. His reception is more complex than that-more complex, in fact, than that of any other poet I am familiar with. But it is not just that many people have admired his poetry and rejected his philosophy. And his materialism was obnoxious to the Christians-so much so that his work was fortunate to survive the Middle Ages. Though his poetry was admired from when it first appeared around the middle of the first century BC, his Epicureanism was unacceptable to the Stoics who so often dominated Roman philosophy. 2 Such antipathy to the Roman poet was nothing new, of course, particularly towards his philosophy. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 39 vols (London and New York, NY: George (.)ġ John Ruskin, who had read Lucretius’s De rerum natura in his student days as a set book at Oxford, commented in later years: ‘I have ever since held it the most hopeless sign of a man’s mind being made of flint-shingle if he liked Lucretius’. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, Berkeley, etc., 1992. Concordantia in Lucretium, Hildesheim, 1991. A Concordance of Lucretius, Berkeley, 1968 revised ed.

Index Lucretianus, 2nd ed., Göteborg, 1926. Lucrèce, De rerum natura: index verborum, listes de réquence, relevés grammaticaux, Liège, 1986. New York–Scarborough, Ontario–London, 1974. The earliest English versions in both verse and prose are unpublished: the verse translation of Lucy Hutchinson in the British Library and an anonymous prose translation in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 71This is an inexhaustive list of published translations of the whole poem.(d) English translations in chronological order 71

Roma, 1904 Torino, 1928 (revised by Pascal and Castiglioni, L.). Roma, 1960 ( editio maior and editio minor).

Lucreti De Rerum Natura locos praecipue notabiles collegit et illustravit H.

Lucretius on the nature of things best translation