William Ellery Leonard (1876–1944)
Auteur de On the nature of things : Books 1-6 [in Latin]
A propos de l'auteur
Œuvres de William Ellery Leonard
On the nature of things : Books 1-6 [in Latin] (1773) — Directeur de publication; quelques éditions — 241 exemplaires
Aesop and Hyssop, Being Fables Adapted and Original with the Morals Carefully Forumlated (1912) 3 exemplaires
The Lynching Bee, And Other Poems 3 exemplaires
T. Lucretius Carus of the Nature of Things: A Metrical Translation (Classic Reprint) (2015) 3 exemplaires
Tutankhamen, and after; new poems 1 exemplaire
A Son of Earth 1 exemplaire
On the Nature of Things (Translated by William Ellery Leonard with an Introduction by Cyril Bailey) 1 exemplaire
The Oregon Trail 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume One: Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker (2000) — Contributeur — 438 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom canonique
- Leonard, William Ellery
- Nom légal
- Leonard, William Ellery
- Date de naissance
- 1876-01-25
- Date de décès
- 1944-05-02
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieu de naissance
- Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
- Lieu du décès
- Madison, Wisconsin, USA
- Cause du décès
- heart attack
- Lieux de résidence
- Madison, Wisconsin, USA
- Études
- Boston University (BA|1898)
Harvard University (MA|1899)
University of Bonn
Göttingen University
Columbia University (Ph.D|1904) - Professions
- poet
translator
professor
literary critic - Organisations
- University of Wisconsin
- Prix et distinctions
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature, 1926)
Membres
Critiques
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 14
- Aussi par
- 3
- Membres
- 298
- Popularité
- #78,715
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 15
- Langues
- 1
Lucretius magnum opus is like a flashing sign, frenetically pointing out a route for civilization, one that, unfortunately, was missed by many centuries to come. The work, in its structure, is magnificent. The author guides his readers through endless examples of how nature works, from bottom-up and back again. The atoms, endless, with many, but too many, different forms, make the whole of the "Great All", the all that we all around touch and feel. For sense is what determines our perception, and sense shows us that we are nothing other that a part of nature, herself subject to the many swerves of the its smallest constituent atomic elements.
Most striking, still today, are his descriptions of the 'multitudinous' complexity of a very granular world, a world that because of its granularity allows for the whole spectacle of the ineffable Nature; a world where no gods are needed when all you have to do to understand its motives is to look around and read on nature's own examples. And that's the power of his artistry. For Lucretius oeuvre still makes us ponder how things fit so tightly to one another, almost as matching pieces of a puzzle that still strike us today as much wondrous as it is absurd.
Even if outdated, the view is sill compelling. If one is to find any kind of meaning, that meaning will have to bow to Nature's many caprices, for only in Nature any possibility of answer lies. Why read Lucretius? Because it will give you back some sense of wonder, that kind of view that only when you were a child you allowed yourself to have. We, as he himself intuited, are products of our natural environment, and that, in itself, is still a valid basis to come to terms with your own most horrid drama of being a being finite by nature. This treatise is, then, not just a failed attempt to explain the world — rather a way to inhabit it, and accept its conditions, all the while not falling to the trappings of thinking it to be a lasting nightmare. For all things come to pass, even the Great All of the universe. Why, then, bother with what's of no concern of ours? Just as existence is no concern of ours before we were born, so too it will become after we die.… (plus d'informations)