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mothgoth's review against another edition
3.75
This was very unlike anything I'd read before! I feel like I learned a lot about Epicurean philosophy, and it was also really interesting to read about science and materialism from an ancient perspective. I was not aware of how much the Greeks and Romans knew about atoms and the formation of life so it was wild to discover that. Some things were of course wrong, but that was also interesting to see, how far we've come and how science is a much more evidence based field now.
However, I was recommended this book since I'm interested in literature about death, and in the hope of making me fear death less, but this did not quite deliver in that regard. Lucretius' main argument is that because life can be observed and explained (scientifically) there are no gods, no heaven or hell, and therefore we shouldn't fear death because there will be no eternal punishment. That's pretty opposite to my fear, which is that I don't like the idea of not being conscious anymore. ANYWAY. Worth the read, and I was worried about not really "getting it" since I don't read many things this old, but it wasn't difficult to read through at all.
However, I was recommended this book since I'm interested in literature about death, and in the hope of making me fear death less, but this did not quite deliver in that regard. Lucretius' main argument is that because life can be observed and explained (scientifically) there are no gods, no heaven or hell, and therefore we shouldn't fear death because there will be no eternal punishment. That's pretty opposite to my fear, which is that I don't like the idea of not being conscious anymore. ANYWAY. Worth the read, and I was worried about not really "getting it" since I don't read many things this old, but it wasn't difficult to read through at all.
steven_nobody's review against another edition
4.0
Although the best part of this work is the section on death-is-nothingness, I also liked Lucretius' theories on weather and earthquakes. Also interesting is that the best way to conceive is in the doggy style position, and that prostitutes can grind away in pleasure while wives should just hold still and get through it because womanly movements and pleasure reduces the chances of making a baby. Sexism through the ages.
borumi's review against another edition
4.0
review to be resumed later
a mighty shame it was not fully recovered, though. guess we're lucky to have it at all. stole the thunder from darwin, einstein, kinsey and countless many.
a mighty shame it was not fully recovered, though. guess we're lucky to have it at all. stole the thunder from darwin, einstein, kinsey and countless many.
sbeni's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
manyoshu's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting modern translation of a towering classic poem. Certainly an oddity, Lucretius' On the Nature of Things is the rare example of a didactic epic. Instead of telling you some story about a mythical past, Lucretius aims to make sweet a cup of medicine he has received from Epicurus. This is, of course, to be done with poetic honey, and judging from some of the Latin excerpts in the footnotes, both the original and this translations proceeds with smooth and mellifluous musicality. Reading Lucretius' unfinished masterpiece is rewarding both when experienced as a retort to relentless mocking by other ancient authors (looking at you Cicero) and as a document of the bizarre weirdness that is Epicurean cosmology. Does it convince you that the stars move across the heavens like cattle grazing different spots? Not likely; most of us are too far removed from Epicurean prelapsarianism for that. But it is nonetheless amusing to read about trees whose shade give a headache and pieces of iron that get "beaten and pushed" into spaces cleared out by magnetic stones, all the while knowing that this is presented as the more rational way of looking at things. (If you find yourself scoffing at this way of looking at the world a little too much, however, I'd advise you to remember that Stoics used to think the sun was powered by evaporated water.)
There is a charm to the Ancient manner of describing things by granting them all sorts of peculiar powers, but often Lucretius seems to resort to wind in particular, which rages and roars until it somehow generates enough heat and pressure either to crack earth, move rivers or tear apart clouds. The latter part of the book is especially a slog at times, when countless odd examples require a detailed account sourced from pure speculation. Religion of the kind dealing with divinities is often in the end replaced with a religion dealing in the coincidental abilities of things to swerve and bounce into each other in exactly the right way. But it greatly helps that we are accompanied by an author clever enough to come up the bawling molecules of Empedocles.
The many detailed footnotes in this edition is an excellent aid in getting a hold of two-thousand year old references, but also helps us keep in view the mythos surrounding the person of Lucretius himself. We don't know altogether too much about this figure, other than accusations of writing in a bout of love sickness, but this is part of what fascinates about On the Nature of Things. It can be tough to get through at times, and not all the honey has aged as well as he would have wanted it, but isn't there something almost recondite about reading one of the most inventive surviving works of the Hellenic period, and coming to last page only to realise that the final word in this unfinished masterpiece is deserentur (an inflection of the Latin word for desertion)?
There is a charm to the Ancient manner of describing things by granting them all sorts of peculiar powers, but often Lucretius seems to resort to wind in particular, which rages and roars until it somehow generates enough heat and pressure either to crack earth, move rivers or tear apart clouds. The latter part of the book is especially a slog at times, when countless odd examples require a detailed account sourced from pure speculation. Religion of the kind dealing with divinities is often in the end replaced with a religion dealing in the coincidental abilities of things to swerve and bounce into each other in exactly the right way. But it greatly helps that we are accompanied by an author clever enough to come up the bawling molecules of Empedocles.
The many detailed footnotes in this edition is an excellent aid in getting a hold of two-thousand year old references, but also helps us keep in view the mythos surrounding the person of Lucretius himself. We don't know altogether too much about this figure, other than accusations of writing in a bout of love sickness, but this is part of what fascinates about On the Nature of Things. It can be tough to get through at times, and not all the honey has aged as well as he would have wanted it, but isn't there something almost recondite about reading one of the most inventive surviving works of the Hellenic period, and coming to last page only to realise that the final word in this unfinished masterpiece is deserentur (an inflection of the Latin word for desertion)?
zmb's review
5.0
Lucretius is startlingly modern. Though he's not yet an empiricist of the western type, his science is oddly prescient in many ways (though amusingly off in others). His philosophy that the world can be explained by natural processes without any recourse to the supernatural puts him squarely at odds with the Greek and Roman philosophers I've read, and many westerners as well. And, of course, his desire to free his fellow men from the superstition of religious practices is thoroughly modern, although similar to other philosophic traditions in his own times.
And this work, this exhibition of science and philosophy is...beautiful poetry? Well, I can't speak to the original (yet), but the translation was quite fun and the English rhymed couplets makes the whole thing seem even more quixotic. Who writes a half science textbook, half philosophical treatise in poetry? And yet it works shockingly well.
As far as long poems go, Lucretius's didactic epic is much closer to own my thoughts and beliefs than Homer's brutal epics, or Virgil's ode to Rome(/Augustus), or Dante's terrible journey, or Milton's moralizing sermon. Not bad for a 2000 year old poem.
And this work, this exhibition of science and philosophy is...beautiful poetry? Well, I can't speak to the original (yet), but the translation was quite fun and the English rhymed couplets makes the whole thing seem even more quixotic. Who writes a half science textbook, half philosophical treatise in poetry? And yet it works shockingly well.
As far as long poems go, Lucretius's didactic epic is much closer to own my thoughts and beliefs than Homer's brutal epics, or Virgil's ode to Rome(/Augustus), or Dante's terrible journey, or Milton's moralizing sermon. Not bad for a 2000 year old poem.
booklandish's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. Just wow. This is a treasure, a true work of art! What blows my mind is that it was written over two thousand years ago... What happened since? Humanity could have done so much better.