Lucretius Poet and Philosopher: Background and Fortunes of De Rerum Natura

Description

Six hundred years after Poggio’s retrieval of the De rerum natura, and with the recent surge of interest in Lucretius and his influence, there has never been a better time to fully assess and recognize the shaping force of his thought and poetry over European culture from antiquity to modern times. This volume offers a multidisciplinary and updated overview of Lucretius as philosopher and as poet, with special attention to how these two aspects interact. The volume includes 18 contributions by established as well as early career scholars working on Lucretius’ philosophical and poetic work, and his reception both in ancient and early modern times. All the chapters present new and original research. Section I explores core issues of Epicurean-Lucretian epistemology and ethics. Section II expounds much new material on ancient response to and reception of Lucretius. Section III presents new material and analysis on the immediate, fraught early modern reception of the poem. Section IV offers a wide collection of new and original papers on Lucretius’ fortunes in the period from Machiavelli up to Victorian times. Section V explores little known aspects of the iconographical and biographical motifs related to the De rerum natura. Contents List of Figures Introduction Part I: Lucretius and the Traditions of Ancient Philosophy Lucretian Pleasures Lucretius and the Epicurean View That “All Perceptions are True” Lucretius and the Mind-Body Relation: the Case of Dreams Can You Believe your Eyes? Scepticism and the Evidence of the Senses in Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 4. 237–521 Epicurean Meteorology, Lucretius, and the Aetna Part II: Ancient Receptions Seneca as Lucretius’ Sublime Reader (Naturales Quaestiones 3 praef.) Lucretius in Late Antique Poetry: Paulinus of Nola, Claudian, Prudentius Part III: Recovery: Early Modern Scholars, Readers and Translators Lost in Translation. The Sixteenth Century Vernacular Lucretius The Persecution of Renaissance Lucretius Readers Revisited Part IV: Modern Receptions of Lucretius and his Thought Machiavelli’s Lucretian View of Free Will Reading Lucretius in Padua: Gian Vincenzo Pinelli and the Sixteenth-Century Recovery of Ancient Atomism Atoms, Elements, Seeds. A Renaissance Interpreter of Lucretius’ Atomism Lucretius in (moderate) Baroque: Meanings and Functions of the Lucretian Auctoritas in Giovanni Delfino’s Philosophical and Scientific Dialogues in Prose Lucretius in Leibniz Lucretius in the Spanish American Enlightenment Victorian Lucretius: Tennyson and Arnold Part V: Images of Lucretius The Story of Lucretius Simulacra Lucretiana: The Iconographic Tradition of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura List of Contributors Index