Lucretius on Disease

Lucretius on Disease PDF Author: George Kazantzidis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110722763
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The standard view in scholarship is that disease in Lucretius' De rerum natura is mainly a problem to be solved and then dispensed with. However, a closer reading suggests that things are more layered and complex than they appear at first sight: just as morbus causes a radical rearrangement of atoms in the body and makes the patient engage with alternative and up to that point unknown dimensions of the sensible world, so does disease as a theme generate a multiplicity of meanings in the text. The present book argues for a reconsideration of morbus in De rerum natura along those lines: it invites the reader to revisit the topic of disease and reflect on the various, and often contrasting, discourses that unfold around it. More specifically, it illustrates how, apart from calling for therapy, disease, due to its dominant presence in the narrative, transforms at the same time into a concept that is integral both to the poem’s philosophical agenda but also to its wider aesthetic concerns as a literary product. The book thus sheds new light on De rerum natura's intense preoccupation with morbus by showing how disease is not exclusively conceived by Lucretius as a blind, obliterating force but is crucially linked to life and meaning—both inside and outside the text.

Lucretius on Disease

Lucretius on Disease PDF Author: George Kazantzidis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110722763
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The standard view in scholarship is that disease in Lucretius' De rerum natura is mainly a problem to be solved and then dispensed with. However, a closer reading suggests that things are more layered and complex than they appear at first sight: just as morbus causes a radical rearrangement of atoms in the body and makes the patient engage with alternative and up to that point unknown dimensions of the sensible world, so does disease as a theme generate a multiplicity of meanings in the text. The present book argues for a reconsideration of morbus in De rerum natura along those lines: it invites the reader to revisit the topic of disease and reflect on the various, and often contrasting, discourses that unfold around it. More specifically, it illustrates how, apart from calling for therapy, disease, due to its dominant presence in the narrative, transforms at the same time into a concept that is integral both to the poem’s philosophical agenda but also to its wider aesthetic concerns as a literary product. The book thus sheds new light on De rerum natura's intense preoccupation with morbus by showing how disease is not exclusively conceived by Lucretius as a blind, obliterating force but is crucially linked to life and meaning—both inside and outside the text.

Lucretius on Disease

Lucretius on Disease PDF Author: George Kazantzidis
Publisher: de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110722659
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The standard view in scholarship is that disease in Lucretius' De rerum natura is mainly a problem to be solved and then dispensed with. However, a closer reading suggests that things are more layered and complex than they appear at first sight: just as morbus, causes a radical rearrangement of atoms in the body and makes the patient engage with alternative and up to that point unknown dimensions of the sensible world, so does disease as a theme generate a multiplicity of meanings in the text. The present book argues for a reconsideration of morbus in De rerum natura along those lines: it invites the reader to revisit the topic of disease and reflect on the various, and often contrasting, discourses that unfold around it. More specifically, it illustrates how, apart from calling for therapy, disease, due to its dominant presence in the narrative, transforms at the same time into a concept that is integral both to the poem's philosophical agenda but also to its wider aesthetic concerns as a literary product. The book thus sheds new light on De rerum natura's intense preoccupation with morbus by showing how disease is not exclusively conceived by Lucretius as a blind, obliterating force but is crucially linked to life and meaning--both inside and outside the text.

Lucretius on Death and Anxiety

Lucretius on Death and Anxiety PDF Author: Charles Segal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400861292
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
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. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Of the Nature of Things

Of the Nature of Things PDF Author: Titus Lucretius Carus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cosmology
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description


The Way Things Are

The Way Things Are PDF Author: Lucretius
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1625581556
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 527

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Book Description
De rerum natura (The Way Things Are) is a 1st century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. Lucretius presents the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna, "chance," and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities.

Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism

Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism PDF Author: Phillip Mitsis
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199744211
Category : PHILOSOPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 848

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Book Description
This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of the philosophy of Epicurus (340-271 BCE) and then traces Epicurean influences throughout the Western tradition. It is an unmatched resource for those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicureanism's powerful arguments about death, happiness, and the nature of the material world.

Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter

Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter PDF Author: Ryan J. Johnson
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474416543
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze's encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.

Epidemic Disease and Human Understanding

Epidemic Disease and Human Understanding PDF Author: Charles De Paolo
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786425067
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
For more than three thousand years of recorded history, human beings have struggled to understand the epidemic--the rapid spread of a contagious disease throughout a human population. This book draws on an extensive list of primary texts to present a comprehensive history of epidemiological thought. The book is primarily concerned with the human experience of epidemic disease and the various ways this experience has been conceptualized and communicated. Part I examines ancient religious, mythological and philosophical paradigms used to comprehend and interpret epidemic disease. Following the ancient period, perceptions changed; epidemics were understood as natural phenomena rather than as instruments of divine purpose. This transition is covered in Part II and illuminated by historical documents, such as Thucydides' description of the plague of Athens. Systematic examination of biomedical phenomena, which began in the seventeenth century and developed into modern medicine, is the focus of Part III. Finally, Part IV considers the ways in which epidemic disease has been treated in various works of literature. The discussion includes eyewitness accounts as well as such popular works of fiction as Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith and Albert Camus' The Plague. In surveying human responses to endemic disease, the book draws connections between three sub-genres of epidemiological writing: the encyclopedia, the intellectual history, and the biographical collection.

Three Philosophical Poets

Three Philosophical Poets PDF Author: George Santayana
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University
ISBN:
Category : Comparative literature
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description


Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance

Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance PDF Author: Ada Palmer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674725573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Ada Palmer explores how Renaissance poets and philologists, not scientists, rescued Lucretius and his atomism theory. This heterodoxy circulated in the premodern world, not on the conspicuous stage of heresy trials and public debates but in the classrooms, libraries, studies, and bookshops where quiet scholars met transformative ideas.