I also read Of the Nature of Things by Lucretius (William Ellery Leonard translation) in preparation for reading the The Swerve. I was glad I did as I was unfamiliar with Of the Nature of Things and I actually enjoyed it more than I did The Swerve. Of course in part because of the vocabulary used a modern reader can over estimate how advanced the ideas expressed in Of the Nature of Things are. When Lucretious writes of atoms he is certainly not referring to anything like what we now know as atoms. He also retains some odd ideas, like the idea of there being a soul, a mixture of an impalpable aura and heat that deserts the dying body. I also came away with the impression, both from Of the Nature of Things itself and Greenblatt's book, that Lucretius was more of a compiler of schools of ancient natural philosophy, especially of Epicurus, than an original thinker. Still it is a remarkable document that reveals how advanced the Classical European world was relative to the over 1000 years that were to follow the fall of the Roman Empire. So anyway on to The Swerve.


I had a couple of real problems with this book. The first was that if it was the intention of Greenblatt, as it seemed to be, to make a case that recovery of a copy of Of the Nature of Things was a major turning point that drove the Renaissance he did not do a very good job of that. Let's leave aside for the moment whether or not a convincing case for that proposition is even possible. I would say that a great deal of the book was wasted on the story of Poggio's life. Even Greenblatt acknowledges that Poggio was really just a collector of ancient manuscripts, and that his concern was with the accuracy of the Latin translation and his penmanship in making copies, not the meaning of the content. So an interesting sidebar about a little known character, but not central to the proposition. Only late in the book does Greenblatt begin to make his case of the importance of Of the Nature of Things in producing the Renaissance, and that argument is weak. Personally I would say that interest in Of the Nature of Things was more a symptom of the Renaissance than a cause. The Renaissance had many causes, among them the Crusades that brought new awareness of forgotten knowledge, much of that via the Arabs and Byzantium as Bookpossum mentions, as well as the slow realization that Western Christianity had become corrupt and intellectually bankrupt.

I also concur with Synamon that Greenblatt includes to much blatant speculation of the nature of: A might have happened, and if so it would not be hard to imagine that B occurred, and that makes it entirely possible that C was the result.

I was also interested by the account in the preface of the edition that I read of how Of the Nature of Things became so personally important to Greenblatt. How difficult it must have been for him as a child to have his drama queen mother make every parting a final goodbye as she would soon be dead. Then she lived to be almost ninety years old.

I really did enjoy this book very much though. Even if I thought Greenblatt failed to makes his case I learned a lot from the book.