Book description
Lucretius' poem
On the Nature of Things
combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the
greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates
to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is
mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical
laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live
in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the atomic theory
expounded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, and continues with an
examination of sensation, sex, cosmology, meteorology, and geology, all
of these subjects made more attractive by the poetry with which he
illustrates them.
Titus Lucretius Carus (who died c.50 BC)
was an Epicurean poet writing in the middle years of the first century
BC. His six-book Latin hexameter poem De rerum natura survives
virtually intact, although it is disputed whether he lived to put the
finishing touches to it. As well as being a pioneering figure in the
history of philosophical poetry, Lucretius has come to be our primary
source of information on Epicurean physics, the official topic of his poem.
A. E. Stallings was born in 1968. She grew up in Decatur, GA, and
was educated at the University of Georgia and Oxford University in
classics. Her poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry
(1994 and 2000) and has received numerous awards, including a Pushcart
Prize (Pushcart Prize Anthology XXII), the 1997 Eunice Tietjens
Prize from Poetry and the third annual James Dickey Prize from
Five Points.
Richard Jenkyns is Professor of the Classical Tradition, University
of Oxford, a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and author of a number of
books including Dignity and Decadence: Some Classical Aspects of
Victorian Art and Architecture and The Victorians and Ancient Greece.
