In a fresh interpretation of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things,
Charles Segal reveals this great poetical account of Epicurean
philosophy as an important and profound document for the history of
Western attitudes toward death. He shows that this poem, aimed at
promoting spiritual tranquillity, confronts two anxieties about death
not addressed in Epicurus's abstract treatment--the fear of the process
of dying and the fear of nothingness. Lucretius, Segal argues, deals
more specifically with the body in dying because he draws on the Roman
concern with corporeality as well as on the rich traditions of epic and
tragic poetry on mortality.
Segal explains how Lucretius's sensitivity to the vulnerability of the
body's boundaries connects the deaths of individuals with the deaths of
worlds, thereby placing human death into the poem's larger context of
creative and destructive energies in the universe. The controversial
ending of the poem, which describes the plague at Athens, is thus the
natural culmination of a theme developed over the course of the work.
Originally published in 1990.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from
the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions
preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting
them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the
Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich
scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by
Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
