Talk:De rerum natura

message: Sorry, I removed the Earth picture before checking here. I'm still anti-picture but I'll leave it as is.
Why not a nose then? 
:cute nose, but the picture of the earth summarizes the point of the poem -- the earth, alone in a black vaccuum -- just like an atom moving randomly in the universe -- no gods in the heavens controlling it ... just more atoms and natural laws for us to explore and try to understand for our own sake.  i'm gonna put the photo back in.  Ungtss 01:14, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately your fellow encyclopedists are a curmudgeonly lot, and have no special appreciation for Lucretius' timeless appeal. You're going to need a really down-to-earth reason to keep the other 8,000 (or whatever it is) editors from removing the picture when you're not looking. For instance, it would have to seem like a good picture to editors who think Lucretius is a lamer. Stan 04:50, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are a poet of the first class!  I tell you what.  Let's leave it here on the Talk page for someone to find. ---Rednblu 05:40, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Being a curmudgeony sort ;), I think this new picture (Earth over Africa) needs a nice summarizing caption. Some, even more curmudgeony than me, might not understand what the the poem is talking about, and some might even not like reading that much in a caption (heathens, the lot of them!). I'll try my hand at tying in the beauty of Earth as seen from space with the atomistic view of Lucretius. -- Jacius 05:46, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why a picture for [[On the nature of things]] 

message: The article Lucretius suggests that On the Nature of Things covered a wide variety of topics. So far this article seems to focus on his attempts at "debunking" the idea of a deity-created universe. Are there more topics the article could talk about? I might have to take the time to read the whole Gutenburg text! ;) Amazing how one becomes attached and invested in seeing an article grow and flourish :) -- Jacius 06:17, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Increasing the scope of the article 

message: Are you sure you found a mention of a "God of Truth, Love, and Reason" in the cited scholar's writing? :)) What you will find is "moral constraint"--twice!  And where is the mention of "madness" in the cited scholar's writing?  The cited scholar mentioned "unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness ..." which you might paraphrase as "fucking"--but not "madness." 8))  Perhaps "evil" would do? ---Rednblu | Talk 08:12, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: oops -- i didn't think it was cited -- it didn't mention the organization by name, quote anybody, or give any author -- it merely said, "some creationists" and then gave a link to an example -- so i figured i'd give a general one -- i'll find a quote from the text:).  sorry:).  Ungtss 15:52, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: the take by THOSE scholars (which was why i changed it) was that atomism is a rejection of LOGIC and CAUSATION -- which is why i summarized it as madness -- i also thought it was a nice segue to lucretius' alleged "love potion" -- but perhaps false philosophy is better?  Ungtss 16:00, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I inserted a few words in an attempt to make the distinction clearer on first reading.  What do you think?  After all, the "atomist" reading this page would think that godless atomism is searching for "reality, causality, and unity" of the universe, right?  ---Rednblu | Talk 16:38, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  The atomists would think so ... but the common sense science people seem to think that atomism is a REJECTION of reality, causality, and unity -- probably a distortion of atomism (seeing as how the atomists think the creationists are doing the same thing) ... but it's what they're saying, anyway.  one last little change to finesse it -- the logic of the creationist position is this: "because God created the order science and philosophy are studying, to deny the creator is to cut yourself off at the knees."  Ungtss 00:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: * Good quote!  Where did you get it?  :)  When you publish your book, we can put it in!  ---Rednblu | Talk 05:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: * :) -- at the rate i'm learning around here ... i'll have a book soon enough:).  Ungtss 14:37, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: * (hoping you didn't think i wanted to put my quote in there -- that was just a summarized form of the last little change i put in -- i know the rules:).  Ungtss 17:39, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: * Right. I was just noticing that it was a good summary statement! :)) ---Rednblu | Talk 18:13, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paraphrases of the cited scholar 

message: Shouldn't this article reside at De rerum natura just like De republica? CaveatLector  Talk Contrib 08:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would support the move. Aramgar (talk) 16:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to: De rerum natura 

message: Besides being a work of science, De Rerum Natura is also a work of poetry. I think at least a section should be devoted to explaining the literary aspects of the work. (I couldn't find anywhere what meter it is written in.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.241.137.116 (talk) 00:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poetry 

message: I deleted the image that represented a modern schema of an atom. There is absolutely no grounds for thinking that Lucretius, or any other ancient atomist, conceived of an atom as having a nucleus around which particles rotated; quite the contrary, for if the atom was the smallest divisible unit (a-tom means "not divisible"), there could be no such particles. To illustrate this article with such an image is completely misleading. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  image of atom 

message: I didn't link to Fortuna in restoring "chance" to the lead section. As with Lucretius's attention to Venus, the role of Fortuna as a personification would need to be explained in the body text first, because otherwise it seems confusing to say the universe isn't ruled by deities and then to say "except Fortuna." This is interesting, however, in particular because it's one of the pieces of evidence used when scholars have tried to demonstrate Epicurean tendencies in Julius Caesar, son-in-law of the noted Epicurean Calpurnius Piso, a patron of Philodemus: Fortuna is the only deity Caesar mentions in the Gallic Wars, I think, and the timeline suggests that Quintus Cicero might've had an ms. of De rerum natura in Gaul. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  fortuna 

message: Just wanted to acknowledge the problems with genre in relation to this work, since I reverted the deletion of "Epic poems in Latin." DRN is a multi-book didactic poem written in the meter of epic, dactylic hexameter, and drawing on some conventions of epic. Any history of Latin epic will include a discussion of Lucretius's work, which is why the category should remain despite the many ways in which the DRN will raise questions (the raising of these questions is usually taken as part of the poet's "intention," for want of a better word at the moment). So just some quick notes in case this comes up again:
* From Minyard's classic work: Lucretius's "aim is reformation of the literary tradition by provision of a new kind of epic and hero";
* Monica Gale, Myth and Poetry in Lucretius explores the relation of didactic and epic for Lucretius in some depth;
* Treated at length in a chapter titled "Didactic epic" in the Blackwell Companion to Latin Literature;
* Characterized as "didactic epic" in the recent encyclopedic volume The Classical Tradition;
* In his history of Latin literature, Gian Biagio Conte labels DRN as an "epic-didactic poem";
* Inconsistency in Roman Epic: Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan (although the presence of Catullus, presumably for the so-called epyllion, is novel).
So anyway, the point is that the question of genre is a major theme of Lucretian scholarship, but the DRN is a work without which any discussion of Latin epic would be incomplete. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genre 

message: The Swerve is the flavor of the month. This superficial pop treatment is not notable enough to warrant its own sub-section. This subsection should be deleted. If it contents warrant it, they can be folded into other sections. Rwflammang (talk) 23:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, the book won the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. It's notable. I don't think the article should be based on this popularized treatment, mind you, but as a vehicle for bringing Lucretius to the attention of contemporary readers, it certainly is notable as a phenomenon. The subsection, anyway, appears to be about "the swerve," lower case, the usual translation of clinamen. Which certainly deserves a section—with scholarly sources. What's intolerable is that the Wikipedia article is so poor, when the media attention given to Greenblatt's book has surely driven traffic here. Cynwolfe (talk) 03:14, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The swerve 

message: Can anyone identify which translation is quoted in Brownian motion#History? It's from Book II, lines 166-185 (approx.). I suspect it might be one of the Penguin versions, either Latham or Stallings.
Also, someone might wish to add a mention of Brownian motion to this article itself: Albert Einstein won a Nobel Prize for confirming in detail that Lucretius had been essentially right! Lacking a modern translation, I'm reluctant to do so myself. Narky Blert (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brownian motion 

message: I recently changed the discussion of an article by Giuseppe Billanovich to read Guido Billanovich, following the table of contents of the Journal in which it appeared.  I do not have access to the entire journal but, assuming the table of contents is accurate, this article was written by Guido, not Giuseppe, Billanovich.  Since that issue also included other articles by "Gius. Billanovich", we are not dealing with different forms of the same name.  They also co-authored several works, confirming we're dealing with two distinct people.  The VIAF has two brief entries for Guido Billanovich and according to Amazon, a book by Guido is still in print. 
I will restore the name Guido, pending further evidence that Giuseppe wrote the article in question. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:18, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I merely looked at the cited source, http://www.edu.lascuola.it/edizioni-digitali/Cappelli/HortusApertus/vol_1/Lucrezio/26_LAFORTUNA.pdf (currently reference #10 in the article), which clearly states "Giuseppe". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:49, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand, probably that's why Wikipedia says you should cite "where you read" a source, rather than relying on another author's citation.  I notice that the author of your source not only cites the author as "Giuseppe", he also cites the journal incorrectly as Italia Meriodionale e Umanistica, rather than Italia Medievale….  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guido or Giuseppe Billanovich? 

message: I think the two sentences on Cicero's response to Lucretius are a bit misleading:
"The earliest recorded verdict of [sic] Lucretius' work is by Cicero, who calls Lucretius's poetry "full of inspired brilliance, but also of great artistry".[b] However, Cicero is elsewhere critical of Lucretius and the Epicureans, and disparaged them for their omission from their work of historical study.[20]"
Cicero refers only to Lucretius' "poems" (plural), so that might not refer to De Rerum Natura. We don't know what else Lucretius wrote or indeed whether Cicero is talking about the same Lucretius who wrote DRM. And saying "Cicero is elsewhere critical of Lucretius" implies he refers to Lucretius somewhere else in his extant works, but so far as I know he does not. He's critical of Epicureanism elsewhere, but again, since we don't know what else Lucretius wrote (were all his poems Epicurean, or was the DRM just a one-off didactic poem?) that may or may not contrast with his assessment of Lucretius' poetry.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CFED:4070:D5CE:EB0C:BCF:749F (talk) 19:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cicero 

message: A new translation has been released by Thomas Nail, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Denver.
Quoted from the Edinburgh University Press page (linked above):
He posted an article about atomism on Aeon as well.
Hopefully these new resources can help with the writing on this entry. Tkbrett 02:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Very interesting! I'll look into it soon. Sounds like its definitely worth mentioning in the article, as it was published by a reputably press and has garnered a buzz. With that said, I'm a bit hesitant to see this as radically overthrowing literally hundreds of years of Lucretian scholarship. That seems kinda like PR-y buzz.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 18:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  New translation by Thomas Nail 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion