View source for De Rerum Natura Libri Sex

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''De Rerum Natura Libri Sex ad Optimorum Exemplarium Fidem Recensiti''}}
===by Titus Lucretius Carus===
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|shorttitle=De Rerum Natura Libri Sex
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|author=Titus Lucretius Carus
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|publoc=Londini
|publisher=Sumptibus & typis Jacob Tonson
|year=1712
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}}[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus] (c.99-c.55 BCE), known simply as Lucretius, was a Roman poet who believed in Epicurean philosophy:<ref>[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199548545.001.0001/acref-9780199548545-e-1847  "Lucrē'tius”] in ''The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature'', ed. by M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref> a “strictly mechanistic account of all phenoma” that atoms make up everything in the world, from physical objects to the mind to the soul.<ref>[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199548545.001.0001/acref-9780199548545-e-1173 "Epicū'rus”] in ''The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature'', ed. by M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref> Little is known about Lucretius, although various contemporary authors have written about his life.<ref>"Lucrē'tius” in ''The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature''.</ref><br/>
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This is the Latin version of ''De Rerum Natura'', or ''On the Nature of Things'', the only known work of Lucretius, is a poem in six books. "The purpose of the poem is to free men from a sense of guilt and the fear of death by demonstrating that fear of the intervention of gods in this world and of punishment of the soul after death are groundless: the world and everything in it are material and governed by the mechanical laws of nature, and the soul is mortal and perishes with the body."<ref>Ibid.</ref> Lucretius wrote with a clear and organizational purpose; even "[the] division of the text corresponds to the Epicurean stress on the intelligibility of phenomena: everything has a systematic explanation, the world can be analysed and understood."<ref>[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192801463.001.0001/acref-9780192801463-e-1313 "Lucrētius"] in ''Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World'', ed. by John Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).</ref> Each book has a prologue and a conclusion. The prologue in Book 1 "opens with a famous invocation of Venus, goddess of creative life, to grant to the poet inspiration and to Rome peace."<ref>"Lucrē'tius” in ''The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature''.</ref>

==Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library==

==See also==
*[[Jefferson Inventory]]
*''[[Of the Nature of Things]]''
*''[[Titi Lucretii Cari. De Rerum Natura Libri Sex]]''
*''[[De Rerum Natura|Titi Lucretii Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex: ex Editione Thomae Creech]]''
*[[Wythe's Library]]

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Jefferson's Books]]
[[Category:Latin Literature]]
[[Category:Titles in Wythe's Library]]