Sympathy with nature. Unconcern for death. Tranquility of mind. Disgust for love and sex. A portrait of disasters. An homage to the skies. A hymn to wisdom, friendship, the morally deprived. To freedom of the will. To the whirligig of time. To the vanity of wealth. To Memmius the swine. To atoms in the void: the never-ending swerve. To worlds upon worlds – the song of Epicurus. This is De rerum natura.

Over the span of 7,000-some-odd lines of spondees and dactyls, Titus Lucretius Carus did precisely what his Grecian predecessor bade him not: he put the words of Epicurus into verse. We thank him for it. De rerum natura (or, On the nature of things) is not a work of science. Nor is it poetic philosophy. It is a poem outright – a didactic epic whose author had no choice but to write as he did. In that way, Shelley might have been wrong when he said, “Lucretius has limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world.” Thus bespeaks the most maligned and misunderstood of the ancient Greek philosophies.

With the powers of observation, imagination, experience, reflection, rhetorical mastery, learned syncretism, and special genius, Lucretius lives and writes in a time of tumult: civil wars, conspiracies, corruption, paranoia, and the inevitable fall of the Republic. If the saying is at all true – that a nation is born Stoic, and dies Epicurean – then, like Caesar himself, we’d have license to seek all the self-sufficiency (autarkeia) and freedom from agitation (ataraxia) that we can. In hard times, that’s to be done through the exhortation of poetry.

The goal of this group is plain: to conduct a close, thoughtful, spirited, and literary interpretation of the poem. We will meet twice per month. Primary sources will comprise the heart of what we do. Our venture will be rigorous, lively, and subject to random, thought-provoking detours. For, in the immortal lines of Virgil, who was no doubt stealing from Lucretius before him: Felix qui potuit cognoscere causas. Or, as the floral Dryden put it:

Happy the Man, who studying Nature’s Laws,
Thro’ known Effects can trace the Secret Cause.

De Rerum Natura meets twice per month, on every second Tuesday at the First Unitarian Church and every fourth Tuesday in the Athenæum’s Bound, from 5-7pm. (The fourth Tuesday in December falls on the day after Christmas; the meeting has been moved to Thursday, December 21st.)

We are reading the prose translation of On the Nature of Things by Lucretius (Author) Martin Ferguson Smith (Translator) published in 2001 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Alternative translations, including verse translations, commentaries, etc., are included in the supplemental readings list. The edition we are reading is available to purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Note: we will be reading the pre-Socratics and Epicurus over the first two months, before proceeding with the poem.

Tues, September 12 and 26: Atomism, the pre-Socratics, and the Philosophical Poem
A Presocratics Reader, by Patricia Curd (ed. & trans.) and Richard D. McKirahan (trans.) (Hackett, 2011). Purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Optional: The First Philosophers, by Robin Waterfield (ed. & trans.) (1st Edition) (Oxford, 2009). Purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Tues, October 10 and 24: Fragments of Epicurus
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, by Lloyd Gerson and Brad Inwood (eds. & trans.) (Hackett, 1994).  Purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Tues, November 14 and 28: : De Rerum Natura, Book I
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001). Purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Tues, December 12 and 21: De Rerum Natura, Book II
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001). Purchase from Amazon or from your local independent bookseller.

Tues, January 9 and 23: De Rerum Natura, Book III
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001).

Tues, February 13 and 27: De Rerum Natura, Book IV
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001).

Tues, March 12 and 26: De Rerum Natura, Book V
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001).

Tues, April 9 and 23: De Rerum Natura, Book VI
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (auth.) and Martin Ferguson Smith (ed. & trans.)(Hackett, 2001).

Tues, May 14 and 28: Reception of Lucretius and Selected Essays
Readings to be determined.

Tues, June 11: Reception of Lucretius and Selected Essays
Readings to be determined.

Prose translations:
De Rerum Natura, by W.H.D. Rouse and M.F. Smith (eds. & trans.)
On the Nature of Things, by H.A.J. Munro (ed. & trans.)
On the Nature of Things, by Cyril Bailey (ed. & trans.)
On the Nature of Things, by John Selby Watson (ed. & trans.)

Verse Translations:
On the nature of the universe, by Ronald Melville (trans.), Don Fowler and Peta Fowler (eds.)
The Nature of Things, by Alicia Stallings (ed. & trans.):
On the Nature of Things, by Sir Robert Allison (ed. & trans.):

Other readings:
Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, by David Sedley
The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, by Gillespie and Hardie (eds.)
Empire of Letters, by Stephanie Ann Frampton
Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe, by George Santayana
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephan Greenblatt

Ian Steller is a native Providence resident with an interest in classical literature. He teaches high school geometry and European history. In his free time, he enjoys running, reading, and carpentry.