Laughing Atoms Laughing Matter

Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matter: Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Satire offers the first comprehensive examination of Roman epic poet Lucretius’ engagement with satire. Author T. H. M. Gellar-Goad argues that what has often been understood as an artfully persuasive exposition of Epicurean philosophy designed to convert the uninitiated is actually a mimesis of the narrator’s attempt to effect such a conversion on his internal narrative audience—a performance for the true audience of the poem, whose members take pleasure from uncovering the literary games and the intertextual engagement that the performance entails. Gellar-Goad aims to track De Rerum Natura along two paths of satire: first, the broad boulevard of satiric literature from the beginnings of Greek poetry to the plays, essays, and broadcast media of the modern world; and second, the narrower lane of Roman verse satire, satura, beginning with early authors Ennius and Lucilius and closing with Flavian poet Juvenal. Lucilius is revealed as a major, yet overlooked, influence on Lucretius. By examining how Lucretius’ poem employs the tools of satire, we gain a richer understanding of how it interacts with its purported philosophical program.

"The aim of this study is to track De Rerum Natura along two paths of satire. One is the broad boulevard of satiric literature from the beginnings of Greek poetry to the plays, essays, and broadcast media of the modern world. The other is the narrower lane of Roman verse satire, satura, whose canon begins in the Middle Republic with Ennius and Lucilius and closes with Juvenal, an author of the Flavian era. The first main portion of this book (chapters 2-3) focuses on Lucretius and Roman satura, while the following chapters broaden the scope to satiric elements of Lucretius more generally, but still with plenty of reference to the poets of Roman satura as satirists par excellence. By examining how Lucretius' poem employs the tools, techniques, and tactics of satire-by evaluating how and where in De Rerum Natura the speaker functions as a satirist-we gain, I argue, a fuller, richer understanding of how the poem works and how its poetry interacts with its purported philosophical program. Attention to the role of De Rerum Natura in the more specific tradition of Roman verse satire demonstrates that Lucretius' poem stands as a detour on the genre's highway, a swerve in the trajectory of satura. The numerous satiric passages and frequently satiric narrator of De Rerum Natura draw on earlier Roman satire, and in turn the poem influences the later satiric verse of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. While De Rerum Natura is not in and of itself a member of the Roman genre of satire, it is an important player in the genre's development"--

With the help of theorists in such fields as psychology, anthropology, physiology, sociology, and folklore as well as literary criticism, Gutwirth perceives that writers across history have attempted to explain laughter in one of three ways - focusing on its social or political function, its emotional rationale, or its intellectual dimension. Offering an array of readings of comic texts and incidents, he constructs a general model of laughter which takes into account its causes, immediate effects, and long-range influence on human affairs. In conclusion, he looks at the unique nature of comic wisdom, particularly as reflected in works by Santayana, Cervantes, and Beckett.