Lucy Hutchinson's translation of Lucretius, De rerum natura
By: edited by Hugh de Quehen.
Contributors: Hutchinson, Lucy, b. 1620.; De Quehen, Hugh.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: Didactic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English.; Philosophy, Ancient -- Poetry.
Other titles: Lucretius, De rerum natura
Description: Lucy Hutchinson is well known for her Memoirs of her husband, Colonel John Hutchinson, the Parliamentarian and Regicide, but her poems and theological writings have been largely ignored. Her pioneering translation of Lucretius' De rerum natura, made in the mid-seventeenth century, is published here for the first time.

An accomplished Latinist, Lucy Hutchinson made her translation "to understand things I heard so much discourse of at second hand." It was a time of intellectual excitement, when Lucretius' Epicurean physics was making its great impact on European thought. Hutchinson responds to the brilliance of his Latin poetry in the fluent couplets characteristic of her century's great translations.

With no earlier English version to guide her, she shows extraordinary skill in reading a very difficult text, much obscured by corruptions and indifferent annotation.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 18-20) and indexes.