Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140446109, Paperback)

This is regarded as a seminal text of Epicurean science and philosophy. With a new introduction and commentary and a revised translation, this edition acknowledges advances in textual research and also provides more background information for the reader. Epicurians discarded both the idea of immortality and the superstitious worship of wilful gods for a life of serene contentment in the available pleasures of nature. Lucretius (c100-c55BC), in elucidating this belief, steers the reader through an extraordinary breadth of subject matter, ranging from the indestructibility of atoms and the discovery of fire to the folly of romantic love and the phenomena of clouds and rainstorms.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140440186, Paperback)

A modern prose translation of Lucretius' work appealing to a disillusioned age to take comfort from the sanity of science. Bibliogs.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 025320125X, Paperback)

"... [captures] the relentless urgency of Lucretius' didacticism, his passionate conviction and proselytizing fervour.' -- The Classical Review

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0674992008, Hardcover)

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) lived ca. 99–ca. 55 BCE, but the details of his career are unknown. He is the author of the great didactic poem in hexameters, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In six books compounded of solid reasoning, brilliant imagination, and noble poetry, he expounds the scientific theories of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, with the aim of dispelling fear of the gods and fear of death and so enabling man to attain peace of mind and happiness.

In Book 1 he establishes the general principles of the atomic system, refutes the views of rival physicists, and proves the infinity of the universe and of its two ultimate constituents, matter and void. In Book 2 he explains atomic movement, the variety of atomic shapes, and argues that the atoms lack colour, sensation, and other secondary qualities. In Book 3 he expounds the nature and composition of mind and spirit, proves their mortality, and argues that there is nothing to fear in death. Book 4 explains the nature of sensation and thought, and ends with an impressive account of sexual love. Book 5 describes the nature and formation of our world, astronomical phenomena, the beginnings of life on earth, and the development of civilization. In Book 6 the poet explains various atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena, including thunder, lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, the magnet, and plagues.

The work is distinguished by the fervour and poetry of the author.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 080185055X, Paperback)

Titus Lucretius Carus was probably born in the early first century B.C., and died in the year 55. Little is known of his life, although two tantalizing bits of gossip were passed on by St. Jerome: that he was poisoned by a madness-inducing aphrodisiac given him by his wife, and that his great poem On the Nature of Things was posthumously edited by Cicero. For the latter assertion, writes Anthony Esolen in his introduction to the present volume, there is little evidence, and none whatsoever for the former.

What does survive is a masterful poetic work that stands as the greatest exposition of Epicurean philosophy. Writing in the waning days of the Roman Republic -- as Rome's politics grew individualistic and treacherous, its high-life wanton, its piety introspective and morbid -- Lucretius sets forth a rational and materialistic view of the world which offers a retreat into a quiet community of wisdom and friendship.

Even to modern readers, the sweep of Lucretius's observations is remarkable. A careful observer of nature, he writes with an innocent curiosity into how things are put together -- from the oceans, lands, and stars to a mound of poppy seeds, from the "applause" of a rooster's wings to the human mind and soul. Yet Lucretius is no romantic. Nature is what it is -- fascinating,purposeless, beautiful, deadly. Once we understand this, we free ourselves of superstitious fears, becoming as human and as godlike as we can be. The poem, then, is about the universe and how human beings ought to live in it. Epicurean physics and morality converge.

Until now, there has been no adequate English verse translation of Lucretius's work. Anthony Esolen fills that gap with a version that reproduces -- with remarkable faithfulness -- the meaning, pace, and tone of the original Latin.

Here is a book that will introduce a new generation of readers to a thinker whose powers of observation and depth of insight remain fresh to the present day.

"Esolen has the rare gift of being both a fine poet and a lover of languages. His diction is poetic and natural; he has a fine ear for sound, and the translation benefits greatly from being read aloud -- as Latin poetry was meant to be. This translation is clear and forceful. It can, and will, be read." -- Kenneth J. Reckford, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140447962, Paperback)

The seminal Epicurean text, in a brilliant new translation

The Epicureans of ancient Rome discarded the ideas of life after death and of an interventionist God in favor of the tactile pleasures of nature. In The Nature of Things, Lucretius celebrates with wit and sharp perception the extraordinary breadth of the Epicurean belief system, ranging from the indestructibility of atoms and the discovery of fire to the folly of romantic love and the phenomena of clouds and rainstorms.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0198146248, Hardcover)

The De Rerum Natura of Lucretius is a sustained and impassioned protest against religious superstition and irrationality. The poem takes the form of a detailed exposition of Epicurean physical theory - an extreme materialism designed to remove and discredit popular fears of the gods, death and an afterlife. Book III is generally accepted to be the finest in the whole poem; Lucretius argues there that the soul is as mortal as the body and shows that human response to the fact of mortality and death can be at once rational, dignified and liberating. Professor Kenney's commentary is the first to give proper critical emphasis to the techniques and intentions of Lucretius' poetry; it can be read with profit by all students of Latin from senior school level upwards.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0941051218, Paperback)

Translated by William Ellery Leonard

On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura) is a first century BC epic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in dactylic hexameter, is divided into six books, and concentrates heavily on Epicurean physics. It deals with the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The poem grandly proclaims the reality of our role in a universe which is ruled by chance, with no interference from gods. It is a statement of personal responsibility in a world in which everyone is driven by hungers and passions with which they were born and do not understand.

- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0192817612, Paperback)

This is a new verse translation of Lucretius's only known work, a didactic poem written in six books of hexameters. Melville's particularly literal translation of the use of metaphor is especially helpful to those looking at the text from a scientific or philosophical point of view.