Laughing atoms, laughing matter : Lucretius' De rerum natura and satire / T.H.M. Gellar-Goad.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gellar-Goad, T. H. M., author.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura.

Lucretius Carus, Titus.

Lucretius Carus, Titus--Criticism and interpretation.

Satire, Latin--History and criticism.

Satire, Latin.

Verse satire, Latin--History and criticism.

Verse satire, Latin.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 260 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2020.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

The aim of this study is to track De Rerum Natura along two paths of satire. One is the broad boulevard of satiric literature from the beginnings of Greek poetry to the plays, essays, and broadcast media of the modern world. The other is the narrower lane of Roman verse satire, satura, whose canon begins in the Middle Republic with Ennius and Lucilius and closes with Juvenal, an author of the Flavian era. The first main portion of this book (chapters 2-3) focuses on Lucretius and Roman satura, while the following chapters broaden the scope to satiric elements of Lucretius more generally, but still with plenty of reference to the poets of Roman satura as satirists par excellence. By examining how Lucretius' poem employs the tools, techniques, and tactics of satire--by evaluating how and where in De Rerum Natura the speaker functions as a satirist--we gain, I argue, a fuller, richer understanding of how the poem works and how its poetry interacts with its purported philosophical program. Attention to the role of De Rerum Natura in the more specific tradition of Roman verse satire demonstrates that Lucretius' poem stands as a detour on the genre's highway, a swerve in the trajectory of satura. The numerous satiric passages and frequently satiric narrator of De Rerum Natura draw on earlier Roman satire, and in turn the poem influences the later satiric verse of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. While De Rerum Natura is not in and of itself a member of the Roman genre of satire, it is an important player in the genre's development. Whereas a trend dominant in earlier Lucretian studies and still present in some contemporary scholarship postulates a Lucretius on a mission to convert addressee and reader alike to a life of Epicurean philosophy, I argue instead for a poet in command of his tradition, with a mastery of his art on par with that of Vergil and Ovid. De Rerum Natura is not the conversion document of a zealous Epicurean missionary. Rather it stages the attempt of such a follower of Epicurus to persuade the internal addressee. The reader of the poem may identify with the internal addressee, with the narrator, or with neither. The experience of reading is different with each of the three options. One of the treasures of De Rerum Natura is not only that it offers diverse modes of reading but also that it encourages re-readings from different perspectives. For the alert and perceptive reader, the uses of satire in De Rerum Natura point to the gaps between internal and external audiences, between poet and persona, and between didactic and satiric modes, from the first book onwards.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472126538

0472126539

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.