![]() ![]() Mortality is a recurring theme throughout the book. Finally, Book V and VI cover the creation of the universe, celestial beings, and natural phenomena such as thunder and lightning.Įngraving by Guernier in an 18th century edition of On the Nature of Things, via Wikimedia Commons. Books III and IV describe the atomic structure of the soul and the body. ![]() Books I and II describe the nature of the atomic universe, and provide an opportunity to refute the physical theories of other philosophical schools, including Stoicism and the pre-Socratics (e.g. The poem’s structure is made up of three matching pairs of books which deal with the following themes: atoms and their role within the universe the soul and the cosmos.Īs well as the symmetrical structure, each book begins with a clear introduction. ![]() Lucretius planned his poem very carefully. It contains over 7,000 dactylic hexameters which expound Epicurean philosophy via poetic language rich in metaphor. The original Latin title of the work, De rerum natura, is a translation of Epicurus’ most well-known work Peri physeos (On Nature). On the Nature of Things is a didactic poem split into six books. ![]() ‘On the Nature of Things’: How and Why Lucretius Wrote his Poem Possible statue depicting Epicurus, via Wikimedia Commons. ![]()
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