Oxford Readings in Lucretius

A collection of important scholarly articles on the Roman poet Lucretius, whose philosophical epic, the De Rerum Natura or On the Nature of the Universe (c.55 BC), seeks to convince its readers of the validity of the rationalist theories of Epicurus. An Introduction contextualizes the essays, and all Greek and Latin is translated.
This book gathers together some of the most important and influential scholarly articles of the last sixty to seventy years (three of which are translated into English here for the first time) on the Roman poet Lucretius. Lucretius' philosophical epic, the De Rerum Natura or On the Nature of the Universe (c.55 BC), seeks to convince its reader of the validity of the rationalist theories of the Hellenistic thinker Epicurus. The articles collected
in this volume explore Lucretius' poetic and argumentative technique from a variety of perspectives, and also consider the poem in relation to its philosophical and literary milieux, and to the values and ideology of contemporary Roman society. All quotations in Latin or Greek are translated.