Lucretius and Modernity: Epicurean Encounters Across Time and Disciplines [Paperback]

Lucretius's long shadow falls across the disciplines of literary history and criticism, philosophy, religious studies, classics, political philosophy, and the history of science. The best recent example is Stephen Greenblatt's popular account of the Roman poet's De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) rediscovery by Poggio Bracciolini, and of its reception in early modernity, winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Despite the poem's newfound influence and visibility, very little cross-disciplinary conversation has taken place. This edited collection brings together essays by distinguished scholars to examine the relationship between Lucretius and modernity. Key questions weave this book's ideas and arguments together: What is the relation between literary form and philosophical argument? How does the text of De rerum natura allow itself to be used, at different historical moments and to different ends? What counts as reason for Lucretius? Together, these essays present a nuanced, skeptical, passionate, historically sensitive, and complicated account of what is at stake when we claim Lucretius for modernity.

Lucretius's shadow is long and extends across the Humanities. Bringing together essays by scholars at the top of their field, this book examines the relationship between Lucretius and modernity. Nuanced and passionate, these essays offer an account of what is at stake when we claim Lucretius for modernity.

Introduction; Jacques Lezra and Liza Blake
PART I: WHAT IS MODERN ABOUT LUCRETIUS?
1. Michel Serres' Nonmodern Lucretius: Manifold Reason and the Temporality of Reception; Brooke Holmes
2. Lucretius and the Symptomatology of Modernism; Joseph Farrell
3. Lucretius the Physicist and Modern Science; David Konstan
PART II: WHAT IS LUCRETIAN ABOUT MODERNITY?
4. The Presence of Lucretius in Eighteenth-Century French and German Philosophy; Catherine Wilson
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