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On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation)

On the Nature of Things (Leonard translation)

Author(s): ,

Genre(s): , ,

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Number of Chapters: 32

Length: 10 hours and 32 minutes

Language: English

On the Nature of Things, written in the first century BCE by Titus Lucretius Carus, is one of the principle expositions on Epicurean philosophy and science to have survived from antiquity. Far from being a dry treatise on the many topics it covers, the original Latin version (entitled De Rerum Natura) was written in the form of an extended poem in hexameter, with a beauty of style that was admired and emulated by his successors, including Ovid and Cicero. The version read here is an English verse translation written by William Ellery Leonard. Although Leonard penned his version in the early twentieth century, he chose to adhere to both the vocabulary and meter (alternating between pentameter and hexameter) of Elizabethan-era poetry.

While the six untitled books that comprise On the Nature of Things delve into a broad range of subjects, including the physical nature of the universe, the workings of the human mind and body, and the natural history of the Earth, Lucretius repeatedly asserts throughout the work that his chief purpose is to provide the reader with a means to escape the "darkness of the mind" imposed by superstition and ignorance. To this end he offers us his enlightening verses, that through them might be revealed to us "nature's aspect, and her laws". (Summary by Daniel Vimont)

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Book I, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 2: Substance is Eternal (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 3: The Void (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 4: Nothing Exists per se Except Atoms and the Void (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 5: Character of the Atoms (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 6: Confutation of Other Philosophers (Daniel Vimont)
Book I, Part 7: The Infinity of the Universe (Daniel Vimont)
Book II, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book II, Part 2: Atomic Motions (Daniel Vimont)
Book II, Part 3: Atomic Forms and Their Combinations (Daniel Vimont)
Book II, Part 4: Absence of Secondary Qualities (Daniel Vimont)
Book II, Part 5: Infinite Worlds (Daniel Vimont)
Book III, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book III, Part 2: Nature and Composition of the Mind (Daniel Vimont)
Book III, Part 3: The Soul is Mortal (Daniel Vimont)
Book III, Part 4: Folly of the Fear of Death (Daniel Vimont)
Book IV, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book IV, Part 2: Existence and Character of the Images (Daniel Vimont)
Book IV, Part 3: The Senses and Mental Pictures (Daniel Vimont)
Book IV, Part 4: Some Vital Functions (Daniel Vimont)
Book IV, Part 5: The Passion of Love (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 2: Argument of the Book and New Proem Against a Teleological Concept (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 3: The World is Not Eternal (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 4: Formation of the World and Astronomical Questions (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 5: Origins of Vegetable and Animal Life (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 6: Origins and Savage Period of Mankind (Daniel Vimont)
Book V, Part 7: Beginnings of Civilization (Daniel Vimont)
Book VI, Part 1: Proem (Daniel Vimont)
Book VI, Part 2: Great Meteorological Phenomena, Etc. (Daniel Vimont)
Book VI, Part 3: Extraordinary and Paradoxical Telluric Phenomena (Daniel Vimont)
Book VI, Part 4: The Plague Athens (Daniel Vimont)
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