Difference between revisions of "De Rerum Natura Libri Sex"

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

Revision as of 08:45, 21 October 2015

by Titus Lucretius Carus

De Rerum Natura Libri Sex
George Wythe bookplate.jpg
Title not held by The Wolf Law Library
at the College of William & Mary.
 
Author Titus Lucretius Carus
Editor
Translator
Published Londini: Sumptibus & typis Jacob Tonson
Date 1712
Edition
Language
Volumes volume set
Pages
Desc.



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."[1] 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."[2] 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."[3]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

See also

References

  1. Ibid.
  2. "Lucrētius" in Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World, ed. by John Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
  3. "Lucrē'tius” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature.