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capri0mniLast Sunday morning, I heard a radio interview with Stephen Greenblatt about his 2012 book: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (about the rediscovery, and influence, of Lucretius' six-book poem De rerum natura {on the nature of things}[written 1st C. B.C.E, rediscovered and copied 15th C. C.E.])
Lucretius' purpose was to introduce and popularize Epicurean philosophy, of which I know a smattering, and like, and want to know more fluently, so I can do like Lucretius, and wax artistic about it in a way that makes sense.
At first, I thought I'd buy Greenblatt's book. But then I realized that I'd probably get more satisfaction if I aimed a little closer to the source material before taking on a meta-discussion about it. My Latin was always marginal, my peak fluency is 35 years behind me, and Lucretius' verse is famous for being both beautiful and difficult. So I've downloaded a PDF of an 1880 English translation in prose, for free (Public Domain FTW!).
Wikipedia article on "De Rerum Natura"
So... You know: this is a warning that, when not talking about my own poetry, I'll probably talking a lot about this, here.
Lucretius' purpose was to introduce and popularize Epicurean philosophy, of which I know a smattering, and like, and want to know more fluently, so I can do like Lucretius, and wax artistic about it in a way that makes sense.
At first, I thought I'd buy Greenblatt's book. But then I realized that I'd probably get more satisfaction if I aimed a little closer to the source material before taking on a meta-discussion about it. My Latin was always marginal, my peak fluency is 35 years behind me, and Lucretius' verse is famous for being both beautiful and difficult. So I've downloaded a PDF of an 1880 English translation in prose, for free (Public Domain FTW!).
Wikipedia article on "De Rerum Natura"
So... You know: this is a warning that, when not talking about my own poetry, I'll probably talking a lot about this, here.
