Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
In 1883 M. Patin published his Études sur la poésie latine, and devoted his seventh chapter (pp. 117 ff.) to Lucretius under the heading ‘Du poëme De la Nature. L'anti-Lucrèce chez Lucrèce’. His theme was that behind Lucretius' poetry one can detect a deeply divided personality, a man dedicated indeed to the doctrines of Epicurus, but revealing in his language and imagery a naturally religious spirit chafing, perhaps unconsciously, against the constraints of his philosophy. On reading this chapter one becomes aware of a certain apologetic undertone. M. Patin is preoccupied with justifying his almost excessive enthusiasm for a pagan poet to a Christian audience. Two of the pitfalls confronting the literary critic are that he will identify himself in his own imagination with the author whom he is criticizing, and that he will be so identified by his readers. In his eagerness to avoid the second M. Patin slips into the first; for all its brilliance, his chapter illuminates the personality of its writer rather than of Lucretius, and might almost be entitled ‘L'anti-Patin chez Patin’. Yet his chapter, and especially his chapter-heading, have set the tone for much subsequent criticism of Lucretius. Taking up his main thesis, critics have arbitrarily broadened its terms of reference, drawing attention to such apparent inconsistencies as the contrast between the picture of Mars and Venus as lovers and as open to be moved by prayers for suffering humanity (i. 29 ff.), and the picture of the gods living a life of untroubled contemplation in the interstellar spaces, remote from our world and uninterested in its affairs (iii. 18 ff.). And the tensions and contradictions of the poem have been linked by some with the story of the poet's madness and suicide.
page 54 note 1 Most convincingly by Regenbogen, O. in Neve Wege zur AntikeGoogle Scholar, II. i, Lukrez: Seine Gestalt in seinem Gedicht (Leipzig, 1932).Google Scholar
page 55 note 1 From Bailey's discussion and the literature that he cites in Vol. i, pp. 1–21, all that survives of the external tradition is that Lucretius lived between 100 and 50 B.c. The story of his insanity and suicide is demolished by Ziegler, 's incisive article in Hermes, lxxi (1936), 421ff.Google Scholar
page 56 note 1 Classical Quarterly, N.s. iii (1953), 97ff.Google Scholar, especially 109 n.
page 56 note 2 Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, lxii (1957), 105ff.Google Scholar, especially 108.
page 59 note 1 See Payne, H., Necrocorinthia (Oxford, 1931), pp. 19Google Scholar, n. 2, and 53, and his plates (e.g. 20.1, No. 457). Cf. also the Egyptian parallel from Diodorus cited by Bailey in his note ad loc.
page 59 note 2 v. 507. In Platnauer, M., Fifty Years of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1954), 277Google Scholar, Bailey remarks: ‘The orthodox view is that he [Lucretius] … took his place in the good society of his day, going as a friend with C. Memmius to Bithynia.’ One would like to see some supporting evidence.
page 59 note 3 Sall, . Cat. 11–12.Google Scholar
page 60 note 1 See the penetrating analysis of Regenbogen, , op. cit. 34ff.Google Scholar
page 61 note 1 This would be very much in Lucretius' manner; cf. his jingles on ignis and lignum (i. 912 and 914) and on amorem and umorem (iv. 1054–6).
page 62 note 1 See Festugière, A. J., Epicurus and his Gods (Oxford, 1955)Google Scholar, with his bibliography, and especially pp. 62 ff.
page 63 note 1 See Bignone, E., Storia della letteratura latina (Firenze, 1946), ii. 137ff.Google Scholar, and especially 427 ff.
page 63 note 2 Cf. i. 852, leti sub dentibus ipsis.