4 - Lucretius and previous poetic traditions

Summary

Ennius … noster … qui primus amoeno detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam

(DRN 1.117-18)

Our own Ennius, who first brought down from pleasant Helicon a garland of evergreen leaves

auia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante trita solo. iuuat integros accedere fontis atque haurire, iuuatque nouos decerpere flores insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam unde prius nulli uelarint tempora Musae

(DRN 1.926-30 = 4.1-5)

I wander through trackless places of the Muses, trodden by no foot before mine. It is pleasant to approach untouched springs and drink, and pleasant to pluck fresh flowers and seek a glorious garland for my head in places whence the Muses have crowned no other brow.

These two closely related passages from Lucretius’ first book suggest - when taken together - a concern with literary filiation and poetic originality typical of the poets of the first century bc. A cross-reference is implicit in the shared image of the garland plucked on the mountain of the Muses: even as he stakes his own claim as a literary innovator, the poet points us back to his earlier acknowledgement of Ennius as literary forebear. Paradoxically, the poet’s originality is predicated on the existence of a prior tradition.

Lucretius’ engagement with previous poetic traditions is intense and sustained, though largely conducted with a subtlety that has often led commentators to overlook its existence. The issue was a particularly pressing one for an Epicurean poet: Epicurus himself appears to have held literary pursuits in general to be trivial, if not positively dangerous.