On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page A

single main source, and if so, what that source was. The title (cf. 1. 25) recalls that of Epicurus’ major treatise ‘On Nature’ mentioned above, but the structure of that work as we know it from papyrus fragments differs in significant respects from that of
On the Nature of the Universe
and that presumably also goes for any (lost) epitome. There is a much closer correspondence, however, with the extant
Letter to Herodotus
of Epicurus, passages of which are closely translated (see notes on 1. 159 etc.), although
On the Nature of the Universe
is longer and the order of topics is sometimes changed. One plausible hypothesis is that the
Letter to Herodotus
provided the basic core of the poem, but this was expanded from a variety of other sources. Other prose philosophical and scientific sources are also drawn on, including Plato and the medical writing ascribed to Hippocrates (see notes to 3. 526, 3. 487, etc.), though we can never be certain that some of this had not already been assimilated into the atomist tradition. The final part of Book 3 in particular (with the prologues to Books 2 and 3 and the end of Book 4 ) contains material from the so called ‘diatribe’ tradition of practical philosophical rhetoric, in which a direct assault is made on the false beliefs of common humanity. The poem also draws on a wide range of literary texts in both Greek and Latin, from Homer to Ennius and Latin drama (see notes). Particularly important is the lost philosophical didactic poetry of Empedocles (fifth century BC ), which is known only in fragments whose reconstruction is controversial, but which, like
On the Nature of the Universe
, set out in verse an account of the workings of the universe. Empedocles’ use of a theory of four elements is criticized (1. 705–829), and the religious content of his verses often perverted to Lucretius’ own ends (see notes to1. 1116, 5. 100, 5. 226) but his two opposed principles of ‘Love’ and ‘Strife’ influence the prologue and elsewhere (see note to 1. 33), and his stance as a ‘master of truth’ offering an important secret to his audience is one that is enthusiastically taken up by Lucretius.
    In its dense negotiation with a wide variety of texts in different genres,
On the Nature of the Universe
is typical of Latin poetry: an obvious comparison is with Virgil’s
Aeneid
, written some thirty years after Lucretius’ poem (and engaged in a constant dialogue with it). Philosophical themes are common in Latin poetry—the
Odes
of Horace, for instance, often deal with ethical topics—but what distinguishes
On the Nature of the Universe
is the centrality of its engagement with science and philosophy. Similarly, modern readers are likely to approach the text with a variety of interests, as simultaneously a first-century BC philosophical treatise, an account of ancient science, and one of the greatest of all Latin poems. Traditionally, the differing reading practices of the text’s critics have been polarized around an opposition between ‘philosophy’—perhaps more properly science—and poetry. The ‘problem’ of the text has been seen as that of reconciling these two opposed ways of reading, and the ‘solution’ of much modern criticism has been to show how much, in fact, the poetics of the poem are in harmony with its philosophical and scientific concerns. The text gives a central role, for instance, to a rich and dense use of the pre-eminent poetic trope of metaphor: it is no coincidence that the article which is credited with first stressing this in modern times (by H. Sykes Davies) was published in T. S. Eliot’s journal
Criterion
. 3 Lucretius’ revaluation this century parallels that of Donne and the Metaphysicals as recuperated by Pound and Eliot. Lucretius’ metaphors, as David West showed in his brilliant little study
The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius
, 4 are sharp and complex, though they have not always been well dealt with by his translators and