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samble's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
RIP Lucretius, you would have loved particle physics
henry_michael03's review
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
4.0
dee9401's review
3.0
I picked up The Nature of Things (De rerum natura) since I was curious to see a verse form applied to what amounts to a lecture. I enjoyed engaging with Lucretius and his treatise on Epicurean philosophy and science. I think A. E. Stallings did a great job translating the text and rendering into rhyming fourteeners. I think it made the text flow more easily and pulled me through the work.
Epicurean philosophy posits a materialistic world, one where natural science is applied to understand the world and its processes. The world is made up of indivisible atoms and all events and processes are merely the effects of their movement, hence there is no need for supernatural explanations (p. ix). It also espouses a pursuit of pleasure, not a hedonistic approach, but one of the abstract joys of philosophical contemplation and friendship.
What strikes me as impressive is how things Lucretius describes are still true today. He notes how jaded people have become to the natural beauty around them: “Behold the pure blue of the heavens, and all that they possess, / The roving stars, the moon, the sun’s light, brilliant and sublime– / […] Now, however, people hardly bother to lift their eyes / To the glittering heavens, they are so accustomed to the skies” (II: 1030-1031, 1038-1039). And some people never change: “For idiots admire things all the more / when they discern them hidden in tangled words, and set great store / In anything that tickles the ear, in phrases dyed a shade / of purple” (I 641-644).
On religion, Lucretius writes “More often, on the contrary, it is Religion breeds / Wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds” (I: 83-84). And “So potent was Religion in persuading to do wrong” [I:101]; a line Voltaire said was so important it would last as long as the world (p. 241).
The ideas are intriguing, Stallings translation is strong and the introduction by Richard Jenkyns is wonderful.
Epicurean philosophy posits a materialistic world, one where natural science is applied to understand the world and its processes. The world is made up of indivisible atoms and all events and processes are merely the effects of their movement, hence there is no need for supernatural explanations (p. ix). It also espouses a pursuit of pleasure, not a hedonistic approach, but one of the abstract joys of philosophical contemplation and friendship.
What strikes me as impressive is how things Lucretius describes are still true today. He notes how jaded people have become to the natural beauty around them: “Behold the pure blue of the heavens, and all that they possess, / The roving stars, the moon, the sun’s light, brilliant and sublime– / […] Now, however, people hardly bother to lift their eyes / To the glittering heavens, they are so accustomed to the skies” (II: 1030-1031, 1038-1039). And some people never change: “For idiots admire things all the more / when they discern them hidden in tangled words, and set great store / In anything that tickles the ear, in phrases dyed a shade / of purple” (I 641-644).
On religion, Lucretius writes “More often, on the contrary, it is Religion breeds / Wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds” (I: 83-84). And “So potent was Religion in persuading to do wrong” [I:101]; a line Voltaire said was so important it would last as long as the world (p. 241).
The ideas are intriguing, Stallings translation is strong and the introduction by Richard Jenkyns is wonderful.
hagbard_celine's review against another edition
5.0
Incredible. An excellent translation, with a charming introduction and footnotes.
I read "The Swerve" ages ago, and boy, I can see why this poem gave the Renaissance a boost.
Book 3's discussion of death and dying was my favorite. The bits where Lucretius gives Nature a voice, and where he narrates your own self-directed chastening, were a delight.
I remain basically unhappy about death though. Bummer.
I read "The Swerve" ages ago, and boy, I can see why this poem gave the Renaissance a boost.
Book 3's discussion of death and dying was my favorite. The bits where Lucretius gives Nature a voice, and where he narrates your own self-directed chastening, were a delight.
I remain basically unhappy about death though. Bummer.
jarrigy's review
1.0
Pretty much all down to Stallings' horrific translation of the text into namby-pamby rhyming tripe filled to the brim with linguistic and literary anachronisms*. I absolutely don't have any kind of qualifications or personal knowledge of the delicate art of rendering Latin into text that is both comprehensible and carries over the spirit /intent of the source work (Michael Arnold's review of this better atriculates the flaws in Stallings' approach better than I ever could). All I can say is that if the quality of the English on the page is so poor in its own right that I am left unable to engage with the philosophical ideas presented by the original author who wrote said work with the explicit intent to persuade his readership of the merit of said ideas(!) then I can only view this specific book as a failure on every conceivable level.
*Pray God tell me why "noggins" is a word used here.
*Pray God tell me why "noggins" is a word used here.