Author: LUCRETIUS
Biography:
LUCRETIUS (c. 94-c. 55 BCE: OCD)
Nothing is certain and almost nothing is known about the personal life of the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus. Assertions made centuries later by St. Jerome, to the effect that he was poisoned by a love-potion, went mad, and committed suicide are no longer credited though even late into the nineteenth century, they were. De Natura Rerum (Of the Nature of Things), sets forth in six books of hexameter verse the world-view of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE) to the effect that the world as we know it came into being through the collision of atoms over time, with no design or divine intervention. The work was controversial but admired in the ancient world, but was later so neglected that it was only through the discovery of a single surviving manuscript in 1418 that its reputation revived. It was reprinted and translated many times from the Italian Renaissance onwards, the first known translation into English being that of Lucy Hutchinson (1620-81), which circulated only in manuscript until 1996. All of the four translators of the Romantic period whose work is included here have headnotes of their own: John Nott, John Mason Good, W. H. Drummond, and Thomas Busby, qq.v. Nott’s preface to the sample that he published in 1799 indicates that he had a complete translation “in great forwardness” and wanted only the encouragement of the public to produce it, together with a Life, a critical essay, and notes, but no more appeared. (OCD 10 Apr. 2025; Harvey; Grafton et al., eds. The Classical Tradition [2010]) HJ