Of rerum will natura

Of rerum will natura ( nature ), more often called Of will natura rerum , is a great poem in Latin language of the Philosophe Latin Lucrèce which lived at the first century before the Christian era. Composed in Hexameters dactylic, the traditional meter used traditionally for the kind epic, it constitutes a translation, with the direction where one heard it at the time (see below), of the doctrines of Épicure.

The poem is presented in the form of an attempt “to break the strong bolts of the doors of nature”, i.e. to reveal with the reader the nature of the world and phenomena natural. According to Lucrèce, which falls under the tradition épicurienne, this knowledge of the world must make it possible the man to be released from the burden of the superstitions, in particular religious, constituting as many obstacles which prevent each one from reaching the Ataraxie, i.e. the peace of the heart.

Epicureanism in Italy

Although one knows few things on the life of Lucrèce and even if uncertainties remain as for the time to which he lived, one is able to understand that it is about one period of political disturbances, marked by massacres (Massacres of Marius), dictatorships (Sylla, from -82 to -79), the repression of social movements (crushing of the revolt of Spartacus, from -73 to -71), or of the many and violent wars.

The history of Rome is marked at that time by a crisis of the traditional values, such that of the ideal of virtus preaching courage, honesty and the moderation, which is often ridiculed and repudiated. However this ideal, supported by the Stoical , had up to that point cemented the company.

In addition, the influence of the Greek culture on the Roman culture is sometimes lived like a revenge of overcome (Greek) on the winners (Roman) by those, which explains the resistance met by those which tried to diffuse the doctrines épicurienne in Rome. But these resistances did not prevent not the doctrines épicurienne from being spread, in particular in the mediums of the nobility, and more particularly in the area of the Campanie. The innovation of Lucrèce, as will emphasize it Cicéron, will be to diffuse these doctrines in the form of an imposing poetry, and not, according to the terms of Cicéron, " without any art" , " without clearness, without order and ornements" , like had made the predecessors of Lucrèce up to that point.

A badly known author

Only two ancient texts give indications succintes on the life of Lucrèce. They date from IVe century and are thus very posterior at the time of Lucrèce. Donat writes in its Vie of Virgile that Lucrèce died the year when Crassus and Pompée was consul and where Virgile took, at 17 years the toga virilis. But this assertion is contradictory: Virgile had 17 years into 53 and the second common consulate of Pumped and Crassus goes back to 55.

In its Chronic , Holy Jerome, raises of Donat about seems to agree with its Master on the dates. He adds information that much judges rather dubious, because in particular of the hostility of the Christians with regard to the epicureanism. At year 96,94 or 93 following the manuscripts, it is written:

The poet Titus Lucretius is born. Made insane by a philter of love, it wrote in its moments of clearness some books that Cicéron corrected by the continuation. It gave itself death in its forty-fourth année.

One said Lucrèce originating in Campania because it is mainly in this area of Italy that was established the epicureanism. But it is only one assumption there.

D' Épicure with Lucrèce: concept of translation

Lucrèce does not claim to create new concepts, but to translate Epicure, i.e., according to the old meaning of the word traducere , to transmit the system epicurean, then old of approximately two centuries. It is notable that at the time of the political disturbances, it is the doctrines of the epicureanism, preaching a fold on oneself to escape the disturbances from the policy, which how to prevail on that of the stoicism, which called some on the contrary with the participation (measured and advisedly) of the Sage in the businesses of the Cité.

The originality subversive of Epicure, at its time, was of glorifier individualism at the time when the other doctrines set up the “virtue” - which passed by the public affairs, or at least the relations with the other citizens - in essential moral quality. Epicure refuses this moral idealism, by affirming that happiness consists only in the absence of pain and disorders. “I spit on morality and on hollow admirations that one decrees to him, when it does not produce any pleasure”, declares it. The principal criterion of truth of its doctrines is thus the feeling , and the purpose of morals is to define the means of reaching the pleasure durably. As for physics, it must dissipate “terrors and darkness of the spirit”.

The style of Epicure was of a technicality which made from there the reading difficult. In its translation of what it calls a “obscure subject” itself, Lucrèce restores in a poetic form what it could extract from the texts of its Master: it is an original imitator, without whom the doctrines épicurienne would perhaps not have been promised in the future that she knew.

The role of Lucrèce in the diffusion of the doctrines épicurienne is all the more large as certain points of the doctrines of Epicure did not appear in the texts of him which could be preserved: thus the concept of Clinamen or “variation”, deviation minimal of the atoms which explains the formation of the world and the matter, is not that in rerum will natura. However, this concept is particularly important since, nonglad to clarify the constitution of a world finished in the infinite universe, it guarantees the free will of the man, since the minimal and spontaneous deviation that the atoms undergo is governed by the chance, and not by some determinism.

The choice of the poetic form

a teaching aiming

If the topic of the nature of the things is " a subject obscur" , it is then advisable to develop strategies to make it understandable. It is one of the goals of the choice which Lucrèce of the poetic form makes, so, like it says it, to impregnate its saving doctrines " soft honey of the poésie" , as a doctor with a drug would do it.

a distinction of with the Epicureans

Épicure and its disciples scorned any literary development. Épicure recommends to Pythoclès, its disciple, “to stop the ears with wax like Ulysses d' Homère”, to flee with full sails, not to yield to the “incantations sirens of poetry”. Poetry must remain a pure entertainment, faults of what it has “the pernicious seduction of the myths” to which it is essential to resist, as with any superstition which disturbs the heart.

a poet " matinal"

The poets whom one calls " matinaux" , the such presocratic Empédocle and Ennius, claim to reveal the nature of the world, i.e. to reveal a cosmogony by the powerful intermediary which the verb constitutes. Lucrèce frequently underlines the effective character of its verb, as the great number of occurrence of the verbs " shows it; dire" and " révéler" in the poem.

Nature, according to Lucrèce, has a form eternally changing: the spectacles which it offers are delivered to us in the form d'" espèces" always renewed, that only the practice prevents us from apprehending in their eternal innovation. Nature is revealed with the poet, who has as an almost divine function to reveal it in his turn with the men.

Lucrèce explores a new dimension of the relationship between nature and the man, this one acquiring vis-a-vis nature the quality of a moral subject. The concept of pact (will foedera), already elaborate by the religion Roman and taken again by Lucrèce, to indicate the laws and limits of nature, means that the man must know and accept these laws. But Lucrèce suggests for the first time that it is possible with the man to break this pact: once man the natural ratio/released from the transcendent idea of religion, the moral responsibility for the man only becomes stronger about it. The man must face " the traditional religion and its glance hideux" in order to conscrer being studied of the natural phenomena.

Structure

Books I and II: they are devoted to the atoms and the formations of the corpuscles.
Books III and IV: they are devoted to the men.
Books V and VI: they are devoted to the world in a more general way.

Atoms and vacuum, being and non-being, finalism and efficiency

Lucrèce exposes the vision epicurist of the world: all, including the human heart and the same gods them entirely consists of atoms in the vacuum. This system is equivalent to a criticism of the religious superstitions: “So much of crimes the religion it could advise! ”. The gods, inhabitants of the intermondes, live a happy life and of nothing intervenes on the human destinies. The heart, made up of atoms, disaggregates with death. By refusing an eternal life, the epicureanism refuses also the fear of the dead one: “Death is thus nothing for us and of nothing touches us, since the nature of the heart seems mortal. ”

By allotting to the Atom itself the movement of the generation and the change which allows the passage of one being another, Epicure is opposed radically to the design finalist of Aristote. For Epicure, there does not exist finality, but of two things: " movements appropriés" atoms on the one hand, and on the other hand " pactes" mysterious by which nature sets limits. That thus implies the causality of the phenomena naturalness and the matter, freed from any finality: nature is only one force blind, which made say to Victor Hugo de Lucrèce who it was " more risqué".

The design of nature like assembly of elements first not characterized and immutable involves a design of the vacuum suitable for Epicure and thereafter with Lucrèce which differs from that from presocratic like Empédocle and Anaxagore, for which it exists a principle first from of which all the natural things rise. The non-being within the meaning of Parménide, i.e. like destroying principle, is not taken again by Epicure and Lucrèce: according to them, the bodies, the atoms have the same ontological statute as the vacuum. Reality is made up as well of vacuum as of atoms, and not to be belonged to reality as well as the bodies.

The clinamen

The clinamen is the variation of the atoms, i.e. a minimum movement which they undergo obligatorily (faults from what the atoms would fall vertically into the vacuum and no world could be born) but in a completely random way. This variation minimum in the vertical movement of the atoms (to be followed)

The cohabitation of the fortuitous variation of the atoms and a stable world finds an echo in certain modern philosophies, in particular in that of Michel Serres. This one, by analyzing the atomism within the framework of the mechanics of the fluids, shows how can be formed a balance " in the middle of the fluences" , allowing the elements not to be carried in the ceaseless swirl of the matter. " The totality of the fluxions is held together in a fixity relative" until a world perishes. Even if Lucrèce does not make any allusion to the fluids, it is well him, by its references to the " tourbillons" , which is at the origin of this interpretation. Lucrèce indeed privileges the aspect animated, the work of disintegration of nature, on the immobility of the world. He is opposed somewhat in that to Epicure, which for its part gives a great place to " steady balance of the chair."

Pleasure, happiness, nature and retirement

happiness like absence of disorders

According to the doctrines épicurienne, whoever is able to escape the physical evils can reach happiness. Apart from the hunger, thirst, pain, the only obstacles with happiness are imaginary terrors, whose operation of the reason, while applying to the knowledge of nature, can help us to deliver us. This state whose disorder is absent is called " ataraxie" (of the Greek ἀταραξία, ataraxía meaning “absence of disorders”).

the true reasoning

What imports is not the Truth, but the use of the " reasoning vrai". The ambition of science must be to calm our concerns and to sit our happiness, and the role of Lucrèce is to reveal to us not-buckled nature, and leaving nonalarming.

the locus amoenus

Lucrèce presents from the start pleasure as associated with nature. That is translated on the plan of the lifestyle by the concept of Locus amoenus, " pleasant place where one finds oneself between friends, lying in the grass tendre". This idea of a withdrawn place, out of reach turpitudes of the corrupted political life, will have a great fortune thereafter, and the locus amoenus quickly became a commonplace of the Latin literature before inspiring the poets of the rebirth. The wise one finds " between soi" with his/her friends, in the pleasure of the exchange without identification. The place of predilection of wise arises as a kind of closed garden which one cannot leave without regret to turn over in the outside world and the universe where reign violence. This violence, of which the work of Lucrèce resounds from beginning to end, threat the world: it is a danger to the harmonious range of the things, a force which is opposed to plurality and diversity, source of a so great jubilation, things of the world.

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