In a fresh interpretation of Lucretius's "On the Nature of
Things," Charles Segal reveals this great poetical account of
Epicurean philosophy as an important and profound document for the
history of Western attitudes toward death. He shows that this poem,
aimed at promoting spiritual tranquillity, confronts two anxieties
about death not addressed in Epicurus's abstract treatment--the
fear of the process of dying and the fear of nothingness.
Lucretius, Segal argues, deals more specifically with the body in
dying because he draws on the Roman concern with corporeality as
well as on the rich traditions of epic and tragic poetry on
mortality.
Segal explains how Lucretius's sensitivity to the vulnerability
of the body's boundaries connects the deaths of individuals with
the deaths of worlds, thereby placing human death into the poem's
larger context of creative and destructive energies in the
universe. The controversial ending of the poem, which describes the
plague at Athens, is thus the natural culmination of a theme
developed over the course of the work.
Originally published in 1990.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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