The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt -356 pages
The author is a humanities scholar intrigued by the
philosophical ideas of an ancient Epicurean-inspired poem and its influence on the
Renaissance. On the Nature of Things was
composed in the First Century B. C. by the Roman author Lucretius, and was
rediscovered in a monastic library in 1417 by a papal secretary. The ancient Epicureans did not believe in the
intervention of any gods, and thought only a physical world made up of tiny
atoms existed. The poem’s surprisingly modern view of nature and its beautiful
writing made it a subject of interest to Renaissance elite in a world dominated
by Church doctrine. Some readers may conclude
the author overestimates the poem’s impact on a movement as varied as the
Renaissance, but this an interesting book on how Renaissance figures were dedicated
to preserving ancient writers.
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