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1. In The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt is
essentially making the argument that a poem changed the world. Do you
agree that the written word can carry this kind of power? And do you
think a literary rediscovery could potentially initiate a new "swerve"
today?
2. Lucretius’s "On the Nature of Things" appealed to readers in part
because it spoke from a lost world. People are still fascinated with the
classical past. Why do humans have this nostalgia for the past, and how
can this type of preoccupation help us move forward?
3. How were the intolerable ideas in Lucretius tolerated, or at least
allowed to pass, after the text was copied and circulated?
4. Discuss Greenblatt’s ability to bring Poggio Bracciolini and his
contemporaries to life for us, despite the very great distance in
time—six hundred years—between their world and ours. How does Greenblatt
handle the unfamiliarity of their world and its assumptions?
5. Greenblatt suggests that book hunting kept Bracciolini from
succumbing entirely to the corrosive cynicism of his world. Why should
an obsession with uncovering ancient books from a pagan past have meant
so much to him?
6. What do you make of the fact that Bracciolini didn’t really grasp the
importance of his discovery? Was his discovery of Lucretius’s poem just
a fortunate accident?
7. What parallels do you notice between the world that suppressed
Lucretius’s poem and the world in which we live today? What differences?
8. How does Greenblatt’s discussion of the loss of books to bookworms
and the destruction of libraries (both willful and accidental) speak to
current debates over printed versus digital books?
9. Did it surprise you that monasteries became havens for—and even
producers of—forgotten books at a time when people were censoring books
and burning libraries for religious reasons? Discuss the complicated
relationship between the church and literary/scientific endeavors over
the years.
10. "On the Nature of Things" could be thought of as a poem that "went
viral." How has the dissemination of ideas changed since the
Renaissance? Can you think of another book or piece of literature that
gained popularity and swayed popular thought in a similar way? Do you
think literature is more likely to have a world changing impact, or can
music, film, or art generate the same effect?
11. Lucretius claimed that the ideas in his work should liberate humans
from fear of death, but his contemporary Cicero said that these ideas
only made matters worse, since total extinction—a return to atoms
colliding in an infinite universe—was more frightening than any
punishment in the afterlife. Where do you stand on this debate?
12. It seems the term "Epicureanism" still conveys rash, indulgent
pleasure seeking. Did Greenblatt’s exploration of the true nature of
Epicurus and his followers change how you think about our collective
pursuit of pleasure?
13. What is the significance of the fact that Lucretius conveyed his
scientific ideas in the form of a poem? What are the consequences in our
own age of the extreme separation of poetry and science?
14. How do the atomic "swerves" described in Lucretius’s poem mirror the
larger "swerve" initiated by the poem itself? What might Lucretius have
thought of Greenblatt’s "co-opting" his term to describe human events
much larger than invisible atoms?
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