For a work written more than two thousand years ago, in a society in many ways quite alien to our own, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura contains much of striking, even startling, contemporary relevance. This is true, above all, of the fifth book, which begins by putting a strong case against what it has recently become fashionable to call 'intelligent design', and ends with an account of human evolution and the development of society in which the limitations of technological progress form a strong and occasionally explicit subtext. Along the way, the poet touches on many themes which may strike a chord with the twenty-first century reader: the fragility of our ecosystem, the corruption of political life, the futility of consumerism and the desirability of limiting our acquisitive instincts are all highly topical issues for us, as for the poem's original audience. Book V also offers a fascinating introduction to the world-view of the upper-class Roman of the first century BC. This edition (which complements existing Aris and Phillips commentaries on books 3, 4 and 6) will help to make Lucretius' urgent and impassioned argument, and something of his remarkable poetic style, accessible to a wider audience, including those with little or no knowledge of Latin. Both the translation and commentary aim to explain the scientific argument of the book as clearly as possible; and to convey at least some impression of the poetic texture of Lucretius' Latin.

For a work written more than two thousand years ago, in a society in many ways quite alien to our own, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura contains much of striking, even startling, contemporary relevance. This is true, above all, of the fifth book, which begins by putting a strong case against what it has recently become fashionable to call 'intelligent design', and ends with an account of human evolution and the development of society in which the limitations of technological progress form a strong and occasionally explicit subtext. Along the way, the poet touches on many themes which may strike a chord with the twenty-first century reader: the fragility of our ecosystem, the corruption of political life, the futility of consumerism and the desirability of limiting our acquisitive instincts are all highly topical issues for us, as for the poem's original audience. Book V also offers a fascinating introduction to the world-view of the upper-class Roman of the first century BC. This edition (which complements existing Aris and Phillips commentaries on books 3, 4 and 6) will help to make Lucretius' urgent and impassioned argument, and something of his remarkable poetic style, accessible to a wider audience, including those with little or no knowledge of Latin. Both the translation and commentary aim to explain the scientific argument of the book as clearly as possible; and to convey at least some impression of the poetic texture of Lucretius' Latin.

This book engages with debates on ethnic minority and Muslim young people showing, beyond apathy and violent political extremism, the diverse forms of political engagement in which young people engage. It situates its analysis of ethnic minority young people's politics in relation to four areas of social and political change: changing patterns of citizens' democratic participation manifested in a shift towards more informal and everyday activism; the emergence of more decentred and participatory forms of governance that have pluralized the sites of political participation; shifting conceptions of identities and ethnicity and their implications for identity politics; and the significance of different scales of activism enabled by new information communication technologies. In so doing, the book identifies 'new grammars of action' among ethnic minority young people that help to explain their disaffection with mainstream politics and through which they creatively politically participate to make a difference.

This book engages with debates on ethnic minority and Muslim young people showing, beyond apathy and violent political extremism, the diverse forms of political engagement in which young people engage.

In what sense does time exist? Is it an objective feature of the external world? Or is its real nature dependent on the way man experiences it? Has modern science brought us closer to the answer to St. Augustine's exasperated outcry, 'What, then, is time?' ? Ever since Aristotle, thinkers have been struggling with this most confounding and elusive of philosophical questions. How long does the present moment last? Can we make statements about the future that are clearly true or clearly false? And if so, must we be fatalists? This volume presents twenty-three discussions of the problem of time. A section on classical and modern attempts at definition is followed by four groups of essays drawn largely from contemporary philosophy, each preface with an introduction by the editor. First, in a chapter entitled 'The Static versus the Dynamic Temporal', four philosophers advance solutions to McTaggart's famous proof of time's unreality. In the next two sections, the discussion turns to the meaning of the 'open future' and to the much-debated nature of 'human time'. Finally, modern science and philosophy tackle Zeno's celebrated paradoxes. The essays by Adolf Gr nbaum, Nicholas Rescher, and William Barrett are published for the first time in this volume.

In what sense does time exist? Is it an objective feature of the external world? Or is its real nature dependent on the way man experiences it? Has modern science brought us closer to the answer to St. Augustine's exasperated outcry, 'What, then, is time?' ? Ever since Aristotle, thinkers have been struggling with this most confounding and elusive of philosophical questions. How long does the present moment last? Can we make statements about the future that are clearly true or clearly false? And if so, must we be fatalists? This volume presents twenty-three discussions of the problem of time. A section on classical and modern attempts at definition is followed by four groups of essays drawn largely from contemporary philosophy, each preface with an introduction by the editor. First, in a chapter entitled 'The Static versus the Dynamic Temporal', four philosophers advance solutions to McTaggart's famous proof of time's unreality. In the next two sections, the discussion turns to the meaning of the 'open future' and to the much-debated nature of 'human time'. Finally, modern science and philosophy tackle Zeno's celebrated paradoxes. The essays by Adolf Gr nbaum, Nicholas Rescher, and William Barrett are published for the first time in this volume.

How is it possible for a poet writing in a tradition so venerable and so constrained by convention as Roman epic to find his own individual voice? How do poets working in related genres - particularly didactic - see their relationship to the main epic tradition? The eleven new essays in this volume, by leading scholars in the field of Roman poetry and its post-Classical receptions, consider some of the strategies which writers from Lucretius onwards have employed in negotiating their relationship with their literary forebears, and staking out a place for their own work within a tradition stretching back to Hesiod and Homer. Monica Gale is a lecturer in Classics at Trinity College, Dublin. She has published extensively on the poetry of the Late Republican and Augustan periods, with a particular focus on questions of genre and intertextuality.

From the bites and scratches of lovers and the threat of flogging that hangs over the comic slave, to murder, rape, dismemberment, and crucifixion, violence is everywhere in Latin literature. The contributors to this volume explore the manifold ways in which violence is constructed and represented in Latin poetry and prose from Plautus to Prudentius, examining the interrelations between violence, language, power, and gender, and the narrative, rhetorical, and ideological functions of such depictions across the generic spectrum. How does violence contribute to the pleasure of the text? Do depictions of violence always reinforce status-hierarchies, or can they provoke a reassessment of normative value-systems? Is the reader necessarily complicit with authorial constructions of violence? These are pressing questions both for ancient literature and for film and other modern media, and this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural studies as well as of the ancient world.

Aarin Jackson sat on a bench on his family's garden, looking into the night sky and asked himself, What am I going to do with my life? Aarin dreamed of becoming a space pilot, not a major figure in interplanetary politics and commerce. Carson Higgins wanted to be an inventor, not a diplomat. They are both children of normal families just looking for something beyond themselves. Ventana Schustoch is different -- she is the daughter of the Chief Ambassador of the Galactic Government - she wants to find her own space, her own identity. Three young people, two from Earth and one from Bandor, sharing a spirit of adventure and a desire to succeed, together go beyond their dreams to become a powerful team, bringing out the best in each of them. Their complementary skills, sense of duty, compassion for others, and positive attitudes move them along a path to adventure and success. With a little help from Ventana's father, they progress to a position of power and influence within the Galactic Alliance. Along their journey they constantly expand their collective horizons, and their number, finding the joy of helping others. They find and share the blessings of friends and family, the satisfaction of sharing of life, love and everything. Their story is not a new one, but rather an update on a traditional theme that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Whether it is 500 years from now, or 500 years ago, the mechanics of life change, but the basic values remain.

This book gathers together some of the most important and influential scholarly articles of the last sixty to seventy years (three of which are translated into English here for the first time) on the Roman poet Lucretius. Lucretius' philosophical epic, the De Rerum Natura or On the Nature of the Universe (c.55 BC), seeks to convince its reader of the validity of the rationalist theories of the Hellenistic thinker Epicurus. The articles collected in this volume explore Lucretius' poetic and argumentative technique from a variety of perspectives, and also consider the poem in relation to its philosophical and literary milieux, and to the values and ideology of contemporary Roman society. All quotations in Latin or Greek are translated.

This book gathers together some of the most important and influential scholarly articles of the last sixty to seventy years (three of which are translated into English here for the first time) on the Roman poet Lucretius. Lucretius' philosophical epic, the De Rerum Natura or On the Nature of the Universe (c.55 BC), seeks to convince its reader of the validity of the rationalist theories of the Hellenistic thinker Epicurus. The articles collected in this volume explore Lucretius' poetic and argumentative technique from a variety of perspectives, and also consider the poem in relation to its philosophical and literary milieux, and to the values and ideology of contemporary Roman society. All quotations in Latin or Greek are translated.

The employment of mythological language and imagery by an Epicurean poet - an adherent of a system not only materialist, but overtly hostile to myth and poetry - is highly paradoxical. This apparent contradiction has often been ascribed to a conflict in the poet between reason and intellect, or to a desire to enliven his philosophical material with mythological digressions. This book attempts to provide a more positive assessment of Lucretius' aims and methodology by considering the poet's attitude to myth, and the role which it plays in the De Rerum Natura, against the background of earlier and contemporary views. The author suggests that Lucretius was not only aware of the tension between his two roles as philosopher and poet, but attempted to resolve it by developing his own, Epicurean poetic, together with a bold and innovative theory of the origins and meaning of myth.

The Georgics has for many years been a source of fierce controversy among scholars of Latin literature. Is the work optimistic or pessimistic, pro- or anti-Augustan? Should we read it as a eulogy or a bitter critique of Rome and her imperial ambitions? This book suggests that the ambiguity of the poem is the product of a complex and thorough-going engagement with earlier writers in the didactic tradition: Hesiod, Aratus and - above all - Lucretius. Drawing on both traditional, philological approaches to allusion, and modern theories of intertextuality, it shows how the world-views of the earlier poets are subjected to scrutiny and brought into conflict with each other. Detailed consideration of verbal parallels and of Lucretian themes, imagery and structural patterns in the Georgics forms the basis for a reading of Virgil's poem as an extended meditation on the relations between the individual and society, the gods and the natural environment.

The "De Rerum Natura" of Lucretius (?97-55 BC) is at first sight something of an oddity: a scientific treatise dealing with atomic physics, human biology and the nature of the cosmos, it is at the same time a poem of great power and intensity, one of the most important and influential literary works of its era. This book seeks to resolve the apparent contradiction by locating Lucretius' poem in the context of a very ancient tradition of didactic (or 'teaching') epic. It explores some of the ways in which Lucretius, in this attempt to convince the reader of the truth of his philosophical system, makes the traditional features of epic poetry work for him. And it discusses the poet's subtle interweaving of technical exposition with ethical precept, arguing that the poem offers the reader not just a scientific account of the workings of nature, but also a guide to happiness.

Virgil's agricultural poem, the Georgics, forms part of a long tradition of didactic epic going back to the archaic poet Hesiod. This book explores the relationship between the Georgics and earlier works in the didactic tradition, particularly Lucretius' De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things"). It is the first comprehensive study of Virgil's use of Lucretian themes, imagery, ideas and language; it also proposes a new reading of the poem as a whole, as a confrontation between the Epicurean philosophy of Lucretius and the opposing world views of his predecessors.

The employment of mythological language and imagery by an Epicurean poet - an adherent of a system not only materialist, but overtly hostile to myth and poetry - is highly paradoxical. This apparent contradiction has often been ascribed to a conflict in the poet between reason and intellect, or to a desire to enliven his philosophical material with mythological digressions. This book attempts to provide a more positive assessment of Lucretius' aims and methodology by considering the poet's attitude to myth, and the role which it plays in the De Rerum Natura, against the background of earlier and contemporary views. The author suggests that Lucretius was not only aware of the tension between his two roles as philosopher and poet, but attempted to resolve it by developing his own, Epicurean poetic, together with a bold and innovative theory of the origins and meaning of myth.

John Conington's three-volume edition of The Works of Virgil, begun in 1852, has long been unavailable except in rare second-hand sets. The whole work is now being reissued in six affordable paperbacks, with new introductions setting the commentary in its context. Well into the twentieth century Conington's Virgil remained the sine qua non for school and undergraduate students and their teachers; Conington's commentary is remarkably close and uncompromising in its engagement with the detail of Virgil's Latin, as well as its literary sensitivity; it still has much to offer the modern reader. This volume contains Virgil's text of the Georgics; Conington's introduction to and commentary on the Georgics; Philip Hardie's general assessment of Conington; Monica Gale's introduction to the Georgics, and also includes Conington's index.