Lucretius on Death and Anxiety. Poetry and Philosophy in De Rerum Natura.

SEGAL, Ch.,

ISBN 10: 0691068267 / ISBN 13: 9780691068268

Published by Princeton University Press, 1990

About this Item

Princeton University Press, Princeton, n.d.(>1990). XII,279p. Original blue cloth with dust wrps. Nice copy. ?The Epicurean arguments against the fear of death deployed by Lucretius are often granted a pellucid force in their own rationalistic terms, but felt to be an inadequate ?consolation mortis? in the face of the emotional reality of the fear of extinction. Segal shows that anxieties about the dissolution of the body and the dissipation of the self into the infinite nothingness of death are in fact obsessively confronted in the ?De rerun natura?, but mostly at levels other than that of the discursive argumentation itself. Pervasive is the old dichotomie between philosophy and poetry, but in the now orthodox version whereby the poet?s powers of empathy and imagistic association are working with rather than against the philosophical message. (?) The chief concept, used chiefly as a heuristic model, is the Freudian notion of displacement (?). The results are very fruitful. (?). The book is most persuasive as an account of Lucretius? imagery rather than of his argumentative and consolatory techniques, and in this it is very impressive indeed. In particular S. ranges most innovatively over the poetry of finitude and infinity; in ch. 4 the constricting and dark fear of the bottomless ocean of non-being is seen in inverse relationship to the liberation afforded by the exhilarating and radiant vision of the infinity of the epicurean universe. (?) In ch. 5 the interchangeability of microcosm and macrocosm provides the basis for an exploration of the imagery of constructing and destroying boundaries of the universe, the city, and the body, culminating in the violation by the plague of the walls of Athens and of the bodily integrity of its inhabitants at the end of the poem. (?) The next two chapters, 6 and 7, continue with the same theme in the form of a detailed examination of Lucretius? handling of ?primary boundary anxiety, the psychological term for anxiety about the invasion or deformation of one?s body. (?) Chapter 8 is a fine discussion of the manipulation of literary models in the list of illustrious dead at 3.1024-44, showing subtly how traditional models of heroism are inverted and replaced.? (PHILIP HARDIE in The Classical Review (New Series), 1992, pp.299-300).

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lucretius on Death and Anxiety. Poetry and Philosophy in De Rerum Natura.
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691068267
• ISBN 13: 9780691068268
• Binding: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis

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.

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About the Author

Charles Segal (1936 2002) taught classics at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Princeton University, and Harvard University, where he was Walter C. Klein Professor of the Classics. He also held held visiting professorships at Columbia University, Brandeis University, the University of Melbourne, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, and the Ecole Normale Superieure. Among his many books are Interpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text and Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the "Odyssey", both published by Cornell University Press.