Carcanet Press Logo
Quote of the Day
Devotedly, unostentatiously, Carcanet has evolved into a poetry publisher whose independence of mind and largeness of heart have made everyone who cares about literature feel increasingly admiring and grateful.
Andrew Motion

De Rerum Natura: The Poem on Nature

Lucretius

Translated by C.H. Sisson

Cover Picture of De Rerum Natura: The Poem on Nature
Categories: Ancient Greek and Roman
Imprint: Fyfield Books
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (216 pages)
(Pub. Aug 2003)
9781857547238
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Contents
  • Reviews
  • ...nothing can be created
    From nothing, nor anything created return to nothing.
    There must therefore be immortal elements
    Into which all things in time can be dissolved
    And from which all things can be renewed once again.
    from Book I

    The De Rerum Natura of Lucretius (99BC-55BC) is one of the great books of the world, a lucid explanation of physical phenomena that develops into a majestic vision of the ultimate nature of the universe.

    Lucretius' observations of the particularities of the world remain vividly alive across the centuries. Through his eyes we see the growth of crops and the changing seasons, the behaviour of animals and the symptoms of disease. We follow his enquiring, scientific mind as he investigates the workings of mirror images, thunderstorms and magnetism, how we walk and what sleep is. The poem's power lies in the tension between this brief, sensuous, richness of life, and Lucretius' overarching belief in an empty universe of eternally recurring elements.

    Cover illustration: Image of the sun from the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope on the SOHO satellite. Courtesy of the SOHO-EIT Consortium. SOHO is a joint mission of international cooperation between ESA and NASA
    Table of Contents

    INTRODUCTION



    BOOK I

    BOOK II

    BOOK III

    BOOK IV

    BOOK V

    BOOK VI

    Lucretius
    Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) was born c. 99 BC. Little is known of his life. St Jerome reports that Lucretius was driven mad by a love potion and that he committed suicide, but there is no evidence for either assertion. He is thought to have died c. 55 BC. De Rerum ... read more
    C.H. Sisson
    Born in Bristol in 1914, C. H. Sisson was noted as a poet, novelist, essayist and an important translator. He was a great friend of the critic and writer Donald Davie, with whom he corresponded regularly. Sisson was a student at the University of Bristol where he read English and Philosophy. ... read more
    'C.H. Sisson's version of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura is well worth having. It should help to bring back into active presence not only the most Latin of major Latin poets, but a work in which the perennial question as to whether science and poetry, philosophy and poetry, can be united receives an unsurpassed affirmative answer.'
    George Steiner 
    Praise for C.H. Sisson `His poems move in service of the loved landscapes of England and France; they sing (and growl) in love of argument, in love of seeing through, in love of the firm descriptions of moral self-disgust; they move in love of the old lost life by which the new life is condemned.'
    Donald Hall, New York Times Book Review
    'I think he is worth a place on the short shelf reserved for the finest twentieth-century poets, with Eliot and Rilke and MacDiarmid.'
    Robert Nye, the Scotsman
Share this...
The Carcanet Blog Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more The Iron Bridge: Rebecca Hurst read more Sleepers Awake: Oli Hazzard read more The Miraculous Season: V.R. 'Bunny' Lang, edited by Rosa Campbell read more
Find your local bookshop logo
Arts Council Logo
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
This website ©2000-2024 Carcanet Press Ltd