The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (edition 2011)

Many scholars of history or art consider the Renaissance to be a relatively short period of time (roughly the 15th and 16th centuries) when educated Europeans experienced a substantial and sudden change (a “swerve”) from a deeply religious weltanschauung to one more secular or scientific. In The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt, the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, writes eloquently about Western Europe as it underwent that change of worldview. He begins with describing the (largely religious) preconceptions generally held prior to the swerve. He detours through the history of book collecting, papermaking, medieval libraries, the importance of penmanship before the invention of the movable type printing press, and the sociology of monasteries and the monastic movement. [This may sound dry, but it contains much interesting information, such as the extreme value of writing material and the fact that monastic scribes used a mixture of milk, cheese, and lime as “whiteout” for mistakes.]

The central figure of the book is Poggio Bracciolini, a secretary to the first Pope John XXIII. In 1417, Poggio unearthed in a German monastery a copy of “De Rerum Natura” ("On the Nature of Things") by Lucretius, a 7,000-line epic poem which had been lost for more than a thousand years. Lucretius, born in 99 BCE, was not the most original of thinkers, but he wrote in beautiful Latin, and he rearticulated the theory of atomism first posited by Leucippus and Democritus and further developed by Epicurus. As Greenblatt tells it, Poggio’s rediscovery of Lucretius introduced to 15th century Europe the concept of that all things were composed of combinations of eternal, indestructible atoms moving about in the “void.”

The Roman Catholic Church at first thought atomism was a dangerous concept because it was thought to contradict (or at least make less tenable) the concept of transubstantiation, which had been so painfully analyzed and articulated by Thomas Aquinas. Borrowing from a distinction made by Aristotle, Aquinas argued that the host consecrated at mass maintained only the “accidents” of bread, while its “substance” underwent a change into the body of Christ. The Church officially adopted Aquinas’s concept at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). But atomism absolutely denied the distinction between “substance” and “accidents,” and thus threatened Aquinas’s intellectual edifice. If the host were merely a specific arrangement of atoms, just how could it be turned into the body of Christ, which had been an entirely different arrangement of different atoms?

“De Rerum Natura” also contradicted another seminal church theologian, Augustine of Hippo, whose view of man’s status in the world dominated medieval perceptions. Augustine had emphasized man’s “fallen” nature. He wrote that the road to salvation required men to overcome their natural desires, to refrain from seeking pleasure (especially the sexual kind), and to perform nearly constant penance. On the other hand, Lucretius, picking up from Epicurus, taught that there was no afterlife and that happiness could be obtained only by seeking pleasure. [It should be noted that Epicurus was not a total hedonist or debaucher—his notion of pleasure was a modest (one might say “sensible” or “temperate”) one, something like Aristotle’s search for eudemonia.] Lucretius wrote that humans can and should conquer their fears, accept the fact that they and all things they encounter are transitory, and embrace the beauty and pleasure of the world.

Greenblatt contends that right about the time Poggio returned to Italy from Germany with his copy of “De Rerum Naturum," Western Europe underwent what Lucretius called a “clinamen” [the word is derived from the Latin clīnāre, to incline] or swerve —an unexpected, unpredictable movement.” He avers:

"Something happened in the Renaissance, something that surged up against the constraints that centuries had constructed around curiosity, desire, individuality, sustained attention to the material world, [and] the claims of the body. The cultural shift is notoriously difficult to define, and its significance has been fiercely contested….[I]t helps to account for the intellectual daring of Copernicus and Vesalius, Giordano Bruno and William Harvey, Hobbes and Spinoza.”

Discussion: It should be noted that many experts take issue with Greenblatt’s contentions. They decry his depiction of the Middle Ages (at least after the 12th century) as overwhelmingly dark, ignorant, and superstitious. His portrayal may be vivid and fascinating, but closer to caricature than fact.

More critically, Greenblatt’s suggestion that Poggio’s discovery led to the Renaissance is anathema to some thoughtful historians. While Greenblatt makes some modest disclaimers about one poem causing an entire movement, he gives mixed signals in that regard. He writes, for example:

"A short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties reached out one day, took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That was all; but it was enough.”

And certainly the subtitle of the book, "How the World Became Modern", lays bare his mind set. The publishers’ blurb, for which we probably should not blame Greenblatt, goes even further:

"The copying and translation of this ancient book, the greatest discovery of the greatest book hunter of his age, fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein, and had revolutionary influence on writers like Montaigne and Shakespeare, and even Thomas Jefferson.”

That encomium clearly jumps the shark. All those great thinkers were influenced by many movements and thinkers besides Lucretius. It could even be argued that Greenblatt saw the impress of others, such as Cicero, and somewhat arbitrarily (or at least unjustifiably in terms of the evidence) attributed them to Lucretius. Many historians, for example, have credited the onset of the Renaissance to the discovery of Cicero’s letters by Petrarch in the 14th Century.

Cicero’s writings on Greek philosophical systems not only profoundly affected European ideas in the early Middle Ages, but are said to have inspired Lucretius! In fact, Petrarch is considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance” by stimulating much of the humanist philosophy that characterized it. The list goes on: in the mid-16th Century, the works of Sextus on skepticism were translated into Latin, and these ideas too were said to have profoundly modified the course of religious thought in the late Renaissance.

The point is that many factors went into the gradual efflorescence that characterized the Renaissance and inspired later thinkers. Greenblatt’s reliance on the shoulders of just one giant isn’t warranted.

Evaluation: When I first encountered this book, I thought the author had overemphasized the importance of the discovery of “De Rurum Natura,” merely using it as an excuse to write a book about the Renaissance. I still think he overstates his case, but a second reading showed that his thesis was somewhat more nuanced and measured. Greenblatt doesn’t contend that the discovery of Lucretius caused the Renaissance, but he does say, “This particular ancient book, suddenly returning to view, made a difference.” With that, I can agree. The book is well-written and replete with interesting philosophical analyses. If it inspires readers to read more about medieval history and philosophy, so much the better.

(JAB) ( )

Joy's review: Greenblat tells the story of the medieval search for ancient manuscripts, of Poggio Bracciolini, of Lucretius and his book "On the nature of things", of the history of books themselves and the Roman Catholic church in the middle ages. Thought provoking and insightful, this book is for anyone of a literate, philosophical or historical turn of mind. ( )

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the 2011 National Book Award, Greenblatt follows the life and work of a 15th century scribe who searches for lost ancient manuscripts of Greece and Rome. He saves Lucretius’s poem, ‘On the Nature of Things’ which introduced concepts and ideas the ‘sparked’ the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The book then focuses on the poem and it’s far reaching impact throughout history. Very surprising modern connections.SRH ( )

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the 2011 National Book Award, Greenblatt follows the life and work of a 15th century scribe who searches for lost ancient manuscripts of Greece and Rome. He saves Lucretius’s poem, ‘On the Nature of Things’ which introduced concepts and ideas the ‘sparked’ the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The book then focuses on the poem and it’s far reaching impact throughout history. Full of surprises. ( )

This Pulitzer-Prize winning work presents the thesis that Lucretius' philosophical poem On the Nature of Things, discovered in a monastery by a former papal scribe Poggio Bracciolini, influenced modern thought on deity and science. The poem posited that the universe is made of atoms in collision with each other, that the soul dies with the body, and that there is no intelligent god.

I read this fairly fast, for my book group, and probably need to go back to it; frankly for me it was rough sledding at times. I perceived a surprising amount of speculation in this well-documented history book, as well as a pugnacious atheism which is probably going to annoy some of my book group cohorts. ( )