Free Download The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics), by Alicia Stallings
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The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics), by Alicia Stallings
Free Download The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics), by Alicia Stallings
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Review
“Stallings’s verse translation . . . actually transforms [this] recondite poem about cosmology and human nature into an intellectual page-turner.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
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About the Author
Titus Lucretius Carus (who died c. 50 BC) was an Epicurean poet writing in the middle years of the first century BC. His six-book Latin hexameter poem De rerum natura survives virtually intact, although it is disputed whether he lived to put the finishing touches to it. As well as being a pioneering figure in the history of philosophical poetry, Lucretius has come to be our primary source of information on Epicurean physics, the official topic of his poem. A. E. Stallings (translator) was born in 1968. She grew up in Decatur, GA, and was educated at the University of Georgia and Oxford University in classics. Her poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry (1994 and 2000) and has received numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize (Pushcart Prize Anthology XXII), the 1997 Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry, and the third annual James Dickey Prize from Five Points. Richard Jenkyns (introducer) is a professor of classics at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, and the author of a number of books, including Dignity and Decadence: Some Classical Aspects of Victorian Art and Architecture and The Victorians and Ancient Greece.
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Product details
Series: Penguin Classics
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Later Printing Used edition (July 26, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140447962
ISBN-13: 978-0140447965
Product Dimensions:
5.1 x 0.7 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
150 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#83,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
ABOUT DE RERUM NATURA--THE NATURE OF THINGSStephen Greenblatt, in "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" re-ignited interest in a long poem by Titus Lucretius Carus, who lived around the time of Augustus. As Greenblatt tells the fascinating story, the papal secretary, Poggio, searching for old Latin and Greek manuscripts, found a tattered copy of the previously unknown De Rerum Natura in an alpine monastery.Master of church theology, calligraphy and Latin, Poggio recognized the fiery nature of Lucretius' work and gave thought to the fiery nature of the Inquisition. Copies of the manuscript circulated at first only cautiously and only to a few trusted friends. Lucretius' ideas, expressed in noble poetry, challenged thinking of earth as divinely created for the use of man and of a Creator to be worshipped in awe, fear, and trembling.Lucretius, following Greek philosopher Epicurus & his school, sees everything evolving from the dance of atoms, infinite in number in an infinite space. These irreducible entities cannot be divided, created, or destroyed. The atoms are unceasingly in random motion. Some collide & veer off; some collide and stick. These atomic clusters form other clusters; and over enough time and enough collisions, they form all we know, from galaxies, gastropods and us. When we die, the bonds dissolve, and the atoms continue the eternal dance of creation, evolution, dissolution.There are, writes Lucretius, no gods and if there were or are, they have no interest in us. So there is no reason for us to sacrifice Iphegenias for fair winds so the Greek fleet can sail from Aulis to Troy, no reason to be afraid of or worshipful to the gods, and no reason, for ourselves to fear of death or anticipate some future mystic bliss.Six sections form what we have of "The Nature of Things," which ends in the horrors of a plague in Athens. This section is thought by some to be an addition and by others, as evidence Lucretius died before he could revise and complete the manuscripts.Intended as an explanation of everything, the chapters treat of--Matter & Void--The Dance of the Atoms--Mortality and the Soul--The Senses--Cosmos and Civilization--Weather and the EarthThus, the book itself, the creation of a mind striving for reason and understanding presented through poetry of grandeur and nobility. It can make for chicken-skin reading in describing the physical nature of the world although Lucretius's view of human relations makes for X-rated, even blush-raising reading in his discussions of the senses and sexuality.THE TRANSLATIONA. E. Stallings, an acclaimed poet fluent in Latin and Greek, gave herself the challenge of translating the 7,400 lines as rhymed couplets using "fourteeners," a long loping line. "Heptameters are roomy enough," she writes, "to embrace the Latin dactylic hexameter." (p.xxvii). The result has been lauded as smooth, easy to read, flowing. I agree.She uses contemporary images and language where she feels this best conveys the poem as Lucretius' hearers would have experienced it. "Stop the presses" is an anachronism, for example, one of many and intentional, in addition to word choices somewhat more Anglo-Saxon than Latinate. Few would mistake Stallings' translation for a (hypothetical) one by Dr. Johnson.And as in Stallings other poems, here and there, she does not resist the irresistable urge to echo more recent poems, such as "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair." (see p.253). To me, this makes for an extra bit of fun for the reader, as it probably did for this translator, and for a translation that moves energetically.I compared Stallings with a highly regarded previous translation, one by Rolfe Humphries, now 40 years old. They're really different. Humphries' blank verse is almost as if Shakespeare's "little Latin and less Greek" permitted him to translate Lucretius. Stallings' rhymed couplets, in contrast and over the 7,400 lines, is startlingly more like rap's driving beats and end rhymes:Consider, for example, Humphries' in Book II"Why do you hesitate? Why doubt that ReasonAlone has absolute power? Our life is spent in shadowAnd it suffers in the dark."And Stallings,"Why doubt that reason alone can quench this terror with its spark,Especially since life is one long labor in the dark?"Stallings' voice is both her own and that of Lucretius. They are poets, and in this splendid translation, both sounds and sense are honored.ANY READER ALERTS? Not really, although as mentioned, Lucretius may have been channeling the Kama Sutra a bit and is forthright in his detailed, acute observations which constitute much of the arguments. It was an age of candour among some poets such as Catullus and Horace.There's a useful introductory essay and an excellent appendix with notes, also quite different from what Humphries thought telling the reader, the one more oriented to philosophy, the other more to philosophers themselves.OVERALL: Now I have two fine versions of Lucretius, and would not give up one for the other. Readers who already have their cherished favorite may wish to have as much of a good thing as possible and get Stallings's Lucretius too. Readers coming new to Lucretius, however, might happily consider A. E. Stalling's as their first dance with the atoms.
Ancient understandings of the cosmos, evolution, atoms, man's place in the animal kingdom, that are spot on. The heralding of the insignificance of any "gods", spirits, fairies, monsters and and such and the insistence of the death of the mind/soul upon the death of the body & no craven desperate need given to the belief of an afterlife, or of a ridiculous place with God, spirits & our souls. All composed in a wonderful poem. It would be like writing a poem of all of our cuurent understandings "Of The Nature Of Things" - it was a monumental task to execute such a poem, as Lucretius did in his time. This is a must have book for any Humanist, free-thinker, scientifically oriented person. It is also for people who believe in myths, they, perhaps more than anyone -should read Lucretius too. For, it is amazing to learn that the secular, non-religious intellectual opinions of people from around 500 BC were actually quite accurate and concurrent to modern science.
Lucretius missed being translated in full by any of the classic English early modern translators: Chapman, Dryden, Pope. (Dryden did tantalizing selections) So it's fitting that Stallings goes back to those roots with a translation in rhymed fourteeners (think ballad form: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum/da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, in couplets). There are a number of reasonably good translations available, including Latham's reliable prose in the older Penguin Classics edition, but this is the most ambitious modern attempt at a full, poetic translation of what is both (in Latin) a marvelous, sonorous epic poem and a fascinating account of Epicurean philosophy (serious, scientific, respectful of the gods but the opposite of conventional piety, mordantly disrespectful of love and politics).
As a layman who has enjoyed many pleasurable hours of leisure reading philosophy, science, religion, and history, I had read of Lucretius’ poem many times. Finally, I decided to read it and see for myself. Others more capable than me have commented on it in detail, so I will be brief. You should read it slowly and even reread sections, especially for a while until you get the feel for the language and how Lucretius uses it to construct the poem. Patience will be rewarded: It is beautiful and incredible. But the most astounding part, which I had read about many other times, is how modern it seems to be in its outlook, philosophy, and physical explanations of reality. If you go down the path, take your time and enjoy it. It is special!
I'm not going to write a book review here, just read it and understand that people have had great thoughts and understanding since well before any of us were born; thousands of years before for that matter. I identify with what he wrote and so am probably quite biased at the philosophy here as it is like looking in a mirror; just weird that I never got around to reading this book before. Tough poem, wish I knew Latin...
I've read most of the way through this poem as I write this. Having read The Swerve several years ago, and having been interested in ancient philosophy for much of my adult life, I was very eager to read this poem. A.E. Stallings does a very smooth job of translation (as far as I can tell, not being a scholar myself of either ancient Greek or Latin)and I like the nifty way she used the Heptameter form to contain the Hexameter of the original. However, I'm finding the use of the occasional modern idiom a little jolting. I just read the phrase "hot off the press" and found myself shot back into the 21st century faster than one of Epicurus' atoms. I will finish the book, but I think I will look for another translation with more adherence to the feel of the times in which it was written.
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