Lucretius: De Rerum NaturaBook III
Lucretius author E J Kenney editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:14th Aug '14
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A completely revised and considerably enlarged edition of this best-selling edition of Lucretius' account of why death does not matter.
The best available guide to appreciating the literary art of this book expounding the implications of Epicurus' dictum that death does not matter. Completely revised, with a considerably enlarged Commentary and a new supplementary introduction taking account of the great amount of new scholarship of the last forty years.The third book of Lucretius' great poem on the workings of the universe is devoted entirely to expounding the implications of Epicurus' dictum that death does not matter, 'is nothing to us'. The soul is not immortal: it no more exists after the dissolution of the body than it had done before its birth. Only if this fact is accepted can men rid themselves of irrational fears and achieve the state of ataraxia, freedom from mental disturbance, on which the Epicurean definition of pleasure was based. To present this case Lucretius deploys the full range of poetic and rhetorical registers, soberly prohibitive, artfully decorative or passionately emotive as best suits his argument, reinforcing it with vivid and compelling imagery. This new edition has been completely revised, with a considerably enlarged Commentary and a new supplementary introduction taking account of the great amount of new scholarship of the last forty years.
ISBN: 9780521173896
Dimensions: 215mm x 137mm x 16mm
Weight: 340g
268 pages
2nd Revised edition