The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius

by Edited by Stuart Gillespie , Philip Hardie

• ISBN13: 9780521612661
• ISBN10: 0521612667
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Lucretius' didactic poem De rerum natura ('On the Nature of Things') is an impassioned and visionary presentation of the materialist philosophy of Epicurus, and one of the most powerful poetic texts of antiquity. After its rediscovery in 1417 it became a controversial and seminal work in successive phases of literary history, the history of science, and the Enlightenment. In this Cambridge Companion experts in the history of literature, philosophy and science discuss the poem in its ancient contexts and in its reception both as a literary text and as a vehicle for progressive ideas. The Companion is designed both as an accessible handbook for the general reader who wishes to learn about Lucretius, and as a series of stimulating essays for students of classical antiquity and its reception. It is completely accessible to the reader who has only read Lucretius in translation.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
List of contributors	p. x
Preface	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Antiquity
Lucretius and Greek philosophy	p. 19
Lucretius and the Herculaneum library	p. 33
Lucretius and Roman politics and history	p. 41
Lucretius and previous poetic traditions	p. 59
Lucretian architecture: the structure and argument of the De rerum natura	p. 76
Lucretian texture: style, metre and rhetoric in the De rerum natura	p. 92
Lucretius and later Latin literature in antiquity	p. 111
Themes
Lucretius and the history of science	p. 131
Moral and political philosophy: readings of Lucretius from Virgil to Voltaire	p. 149
Lucretius and the sublime	p. 167
Religion and enlightenment in the neo-Latin reception of Lucretius	p. 185
Reception
Lucretius in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance: transmission and scholarship	p. 205
Lucretius in the Italian Renaissance	p. 214
Lucretius in early modern France	p. 227
Lucretius in the English Renaissance	p. 242
The English voices of Lucretius from Lucy Hutchinson to John Mason Good	p. 254
Lucretius in the European Enlightenment	p. 274
Lucretius in Romantic and Victorian Britain	p. 289
Lucretius and the moderns	p. 306
Dateline	p. 325
List of works cited	p. 327
Index of main Lucretian passages discussed	p. 357
General index	p. 358
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