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Recurrent imagery and didactic technique in Lucretius' De rerum natura
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Hill, Brian P.. Recurrent imagery and didactic technique in Lucretius' De rerum natura. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-jxmj-kd59

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TitleRecurrent imagery and didactic technique in Lucretius' De rerum natura
NameHill, Brian P. (author); Kronenberg, Leah (chair); Fisher, Jay (internal member); Power, Tim (internal member); Volk, Katharina (outside member); Rutgers University; School of Graduate Studies
Date Created2018
Other Date2018-10 (degree)
SubjectClassics, Rhetoric, Ancient--History and criticism, Didactic poetry, Latin--History and criticism., Lucretius Carus, Titus--De rerum natura
Extent1 online resource (236 pages) : illustrations
DescriptionIn this dissertation, I analyze the recurrence and subtle reformulation of various images over the course of Lucretius’ De rerum natura. In particular, I examine the multifaceted Lucretian technique which I call “incremental didacticism.” By that term, I mean to denote the process by which Lucretius often reintroduces an image which he has used earlier in the poem, such that, with each successive recurrence of that image, its slightly modified presentation poses an increased challenge to the reader in one of a number of ways.
In the first two chapters, I focus on the ways in which Lucretius increases the reader’s proximity to the events in question and gradually tests the reader to approach a given challenge with Epicurean equanimity. More specifically, the first chapter analyzes Lucretius’ use of particular military vocabulary as a means of ushering the reader ever closer to the melee of the battlefield and challenging the reader to exercise ataraxic calm in these increasingly trying scenarios. Similarly, in the second chapter, I argue that Lucretius trains his pupil to apply the lessons of the (ever less remote) past to the present day. In the third chapter, I explore another facet of incremental didacticism by arguing that Lucretius applies a common double entendre to his presentation of acorns in the poem. I demonstrate that these suggestive acorns participate in the poet’s demythologization of Venus in the natural world. The fourth chapter explores Lucretius’ use of jar imagery in philosophical argumentation, showing how the poet wrests the image from the hands of would-be philosophical detractors and applies it in ever-shifting fashion as an analogical tool in his exposition of Epicureanism. Over the course of the poem, Lucretius changes the specific referent to which the jar corresponds in these various analogies, and I track the way in which that changing specification demands increased diligence from the reader. In the fifth chapter, I explore the ways in which Lucretius employs clothing imagery as a means of signaling his affinities with the refined poetic aesthetics associated especially with Hellenistic poets, and I identify the various challenges placed on the reader which Lucretius’ subtle method of allusion to these authors entails. In a concluding section, I demonstrate how each of the sets of images studied in this project illuminates a different facet of Lucretius’ program of incremental didacticism, and I point to avenues for further inquiry on the basis of the arguments advanced in this dissertation.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Brian P. Hill
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-jxmj-kd59
Languageeng, lat
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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