|
|
Article: Lucretius on optical illusions.(Poems)(Titus Lucretius Catus)(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- December 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
In the first century B.C., amidst the constant turmoil and upheaval of the late Roman Republic, a poet named Titus Lucretius Catus, about whom we know next to nothing, composed one of the unlikeliest masterpieces of Western literature: an epic-length didactic poem in Latin hexameters on atomic theory and Epicurean philosophy, known to us as De Rerum Natura, "On the Nature of Things." It probably seemed as curious then as now. Prose, not poetry, was the vehicle for philosophy in the first century, and Greek, not Latin, was its proper language. Epicurus himself would, in theory, have frowned on this mode for his gospel--he disapproved of poetry--but for Lucretius, poetry was ...
Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:
|
|
Article: THEATER-BRAZIL: SHINING THE SPOTLIGHT ON SCIENCE - LITERALLY
Inter Press Service English News Wire;
August 30, 2005 ;
700+ words
... ... German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius (1st century B.C) and St. Augustine (354-430) serve to dramatize the age-old conflict between knowledge and obscurantism ...
|
|