Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 607 words | Copyright

Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus (probably c.99–55 bc), Roman poet. His chief work is a philosophical poem in hexameters, in six books, De Rerum Naturâ. He adopts the atomic theory of the universe of Epicurus, and seeks to show that the course of the world can be explained without resorting to divine intervention, his object being to free mankind from terror of the gods. The work is marked by passages of great poetical beauty. Echoes of Lucretius can be found in Spenser, Hobbes, Dryden, and Shelley; but the finest poem inspired by his work is Tennyson's ‘Lucretius’ (1869).

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-LucretiusTitusLucretisCrs.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-LucretiusTitusLucretisCrs.html

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