Title: Ending with world destruction: a closural device in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and its influence on later Latin poetry
Source document: Graeco-Latina Brunensia. 2017, vol. 22, iss. 1, pp. 43-55
Extent
43-55
-
ISSN1803-7402 (print)2336-4424 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2017-1-4
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136462
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This paper will investigate a well-attested closural device in Lucretius' De rerum natura: the recurrence of world destruction scenarios as the conclusion both to single literary passages and to single books. The argumentation will be divided into two parts. The former will examine the most important examples of this literary scheme in Lucretius' poem (1.1104–1117; 2.1105– 1174; 6.596–607) and will define their models, their aim and their features. The latter will give some further examples of "apocalyptic" closures in Latin literature between I century BC and I century AD. The analysis of these passages will show the persistent presence of allusions to Lucretius' poem, considered as an indisputable auctoritas of cosmic eschatological poetry.
eng
References
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[33] Yasamura, N. (2011). Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry. London – New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
[2] Asmis, E. (1983). Rhetoric and Reason in Lucretius. American Journal of Philology, 104, 36–66. | DOI 10.2307/293758
[3] Bakker, F. A. (2016). Epicurean Meteorology: Sources, Method, Scope and Organization. Leiden: Brill.
[4] Brown, R. D. (1987). Lucretius on Love and Sex. Leiden: Brill.
[5] Chaudhuri, P. (2014). The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[6] Classen, C. J. (1968). Poetry and Rhetoric in Lucretius. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 99, 366–392.
[7] Clay, D. (2000). Platonic Questions, Dialogues with the Silent Philosopher. University Park, Pa: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
[8] Fallon, P. (Transl.). (2006). Vergilius: Georgics. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
[9] Fowler, D. (1997). Second Thoughts on Closure. In D. H. Roberts, F. M. Dunn, & D. Fowler (Eds.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (pp. 3–22). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[10] Fowler, D. (2000). First Thoughts on Closure. In D. Fowler, Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin (pp. 284–307). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[11] Fowler, P. (1997). Lucretian Conclusions. In D. H. Roberts, F. M. Dunn, & D. Fowler (Eds.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (pp. 112–138). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[12] Gale, M. (1994). Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[13] Gale, M. (2000). Virgil on the Nature of Things. The Georgics, Lucretius and Didactic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[14] Galzerano, M. (2015). Lucrezio, De rerum natura 2, 1173–1174, in difesa di "ire ad capulum". Paideia. Rivista di Filologia, Ermeneutica, Critica Letteraria, 70, 243–253.
[15] Goold, G. P. (Transl.). (1997). Manilius: Astronomica. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
[16] Hardie, P. (1997). Closure in Latin Epic. In D. H. Roberts, F. M. Dunn, & D. Fowler (Eds.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (pp. 139–162). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[17] Hardie, P. (2008). Lucretian Multiple Explanations. In M. Beretta, & F. Citti (Eds.), Lucrezio, la natura e la scienza (pp. 69–96). Firenze: Olschki.
[18] Herrnstein Smith, B. (1968). Poetic Closure. A Study of How Poems End. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
[19] Klingner, F. (1952). Philosophie und Dichtkunst am Ende des zweiten Buches des Lukrez. Hermes, 80, 3–30.
[20] Lapidge, M. (1989). Stoic Cosmology and Roman Literature. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II, 36(3), 1379–1429.
[21] Lehoux, D. (2013). Seeing and Unseeing, Seen and Unseen. In D. Lehoux, A. D. Morrison, & A. Sharrock (Eds.), Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (pp. 131–152). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[22] Lévy, N. (2014). La révélation finale à Rome. Ciceron, Ovide et Apulée. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris – Sorbonne.
[23] Müller, G. (1978). Die Finalia der sechs Bücher des Lukrez. In O. Gigon (Ed.), Lucrèce: huit exposés suivis de discussions. Vandoeuvres, Genève, 22–27 août 1977 (pp. 197–231). Genève: Fondation Hardt.
[24] Porter, J. I. (2007). Lucretius and the Sublime. In M. Gale (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius (pp. 176–178). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[25] Porter, J. I. (2016). The Sublime in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[26] Ruffel, I. (2012). Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound. London: Bristol Classical Press.
[27] Schiesaro, A. (1987). Lucrezio, Cicerone, l’oratoria. Materiali e discussion per l’analisi dei testi classici, 19, 29–61.
[28] Schiesaro, A. (2007). Didaxis, Rhetoric, and the Law in Lucretius. In S. J. Heyworth (Ed.), Classical Constructions: Papers in Memory of Don Fowler, Classicist and Epicurean (pp. 63–90). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[29] Segal, C. (1990). Lucretius on Death and Anxiety. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[30] Smith, M. F. (Transl.). (2001). Lucretius: On the nature of things. Indianapolis: Hackett.
[31] Van Oort, J. (1991). Jerusalem and Babylon. A Study into Augustine's City of God and the Sources of His Doctrine of the Two Cities. Leiden: Brill.
[32] Ware, C. (2012). Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[33] Yasamura, N. (2011). Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry. London – New York: Bloomsbury Academic.