10 - Lucretius

Summary

The De rerum natura of Lucretius represents one of the rarest of literary accomplishments, a successful didactic poem on a scientific subject. Few great poets have attempted such a work, and many critics, from Aristotle on, have argued that the contradictions which are implicit in the genre, and indeed in all didactic poetry, can never be fully reconciled. ‘Didactic poetry is my abhorrence’, wrote Shelley in the preface to Prometheus Unbound, ‘nothing can be equally well expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse’, and Mommsen dismissed the greater part of the De rerum natura as ‘rhythmisierte Mathematik’. What, then, is the relationship between Lucretius the poet and Lucretius the philosopher? To what extent do they come together to form a successful unity? Otto Regenbogen called this the ‘central question’ in Lucretian criticism, and in his famous essay ‘Lukrez: seine Gestalt in seinem Gedicht’ he attempted to answer it in three ways: by examining the background of the poem, the personality of the poet, and the structure and quality of the work itself. Most Lucretian criticism falls under one or other of these headings and it will be convenient to consider each in turn.

BACKGROUND

One might imagine that a didactic and moralizing work like the De rerum natura would have deep roots in the society which produced it. Yet there is a wide disparity of views about the purpose of the poem and the character of the audience for which it was composed. Ostensibly it was written for the poet's aristocratic patron Memmius, but, since literary convention required that a didactic poem be addressed to some particular person, we may suppose that behind Memmius stands the general reader.