Saussure’scahiersand Lucretius’elementa: A Reconsideration of the Letters–Atoms Analogy

Shearin, Wilson H.

doi:10.1017/9781108379854.009

Cited by 1 publication

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“…On the analogy between atoms and the written word (a relationship underscored by the very term elementa, 'alphabet' or 'atoms'), see DRN 1.196-8, 1.814-26, 1.907-14, 2.688-95, 2.1013-19. Scholars have long been attuned to this analogy. To cite just a few: Friedländer (1941), Snyder (1980), Dalzell (1987), Armstrong (1995), andShearin (2020). For the idea that the poem itself, with its atom-letters, represents the rerum natura, see Minadeo (1969), Serres (1977), andThury (1987).…”

Section: Beautiful Phlegmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lucretius’ Didactics of Disgust

McCarter¹

2022

Ramus

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The plague that closes Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura is a spectacle of disgust. Throats sweat with blood (6.47f.); tongues drip with gore (6.1149); breath reeks like rotten cadavers (6.1154f.); drinking water is contaminated when the sick dive into it (6.1174f.); black discharge pours from stomachs (6.1200); foul blood seeps from noses (6.1203); the sick slice off their own hands, feet, and genitals (6.1209f.); dead bodies are entombed by ulcers (6.1271). Again and again Lucretius hits upon domains that have been identified as key disgust elicitors. In Book 6, more than in any other book of the epic, we encounter what is taeter, ‘disgusting’. This adjective appears nine times in the final book (22, 217, 787, 807, 976, 1154, 1200, 1205, and 1266) after showing up one time each in Books 1 (936), 3 (581), and 5 (1126); six times in Book 2 (400, 415, 476, 510, 705, 872); and five times in Book 4 (11, 124, 172, 685, 1176). The vast majority of these instances describe disgust working upon our senses of taste, smell, sight, and even hearing (OLD s.v. 1); that is, ‘primary’ or ‘core’ disgust. At 2.510f., for instance, Lucretius speaks of a substance that is taetrius… / naribus auribus atque oculis orisque sapori (‘more disgusting to noses, ears, eyes, and the taste of the mouth’). But the word can also carry an ethical or moral nuance (OLD s.v. 2), suggesting ‘secondary’ disgust. At 5.1126, for example, the word describes Tartarus, into which thunderbolts ‘scornfully’ hurl sinners (contemptim in Tartara taetra). Here, Lucretius wants his reader to feel a sense of moral aversion to the idea of the Underworld, which throughout the epic he is at pains to prove is nothing but a poetic fiction.

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Section: Beautiful Phlegmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lucretius’ Didactics of Disgust

McCarter¹

2022

Ramus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Saussure’scahiersand Lucretius’elementa: A Reconsideration of the Letters–Atoms Analogy

Cited by 1 publication

References 185 publications

Lucretius’ Didactics of Disgust

Lucretius’ Didactics of Disgust

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