What is the book Swerve about?

Greenblatt tells the story of how Poggio Bracciolini, a 15th-century papal emissary and obsessive book hunter, saved the last copy of the Roman poet Lucretius’s De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from near-terminal neglect in a German monastery, thus reintroducing important ideas that sparked the modern age.

Is the swerve a true story?

“But Swerve is an intense, emotional telling of a true story, one with much at stake for all of us. And the further you read, the more astonishing it becomes. It’s a chapter in how we became what we are, how we arrived at the worldview of the present.

How many chapters does swerve have?

If I had a problem with the book, it was that nine of the eleven chapters focused on the currents leading up to the poem’s rediscovery, where I wanted to know a whole lot more about the influence of Lucretius on intellectual history after that.

Did the swerve win the Pulitzer Prize?

The Swerve won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a top prize from the Modern Languages Association — all of which undoubtedly helped to bring Greenblatt’s lifetime of great work to the attention of the Holberg Prize committee.

What is the swerve according to Lucretius?

According to Lucretius (2.216-293) the random swerve of atoms as they move through space insured (1) that all atoms do not fall straight down in space but instead collide and create compound bodies and the visible world around us, and (2) that “free will” ( libera voluntas) exists.

What is the swerve Epicurus?

The second modification of Democritus’ views is the addition of the ‘swerve. ‘ In addition to the regular tendency of atoms to move downward, Epicurus thinks that occasionally, and at random times, the atoms swerve to the side. One reason for this swerve is that it is needed to explain why there are atomic collisions.

What is The Swerve according to Lucretius?

What is The Swerve Epicurus?

Who wrote The Swerve?

Stephen GreenblattThe Swerve / Author

What does Lucretius mean by death is nothing to us?

The fear of death is irrational, according to Lucretius, because once people die they will not be sad, judged by gods or pity their family; they will not be anything at all. “Death is nothing to us,” he says. Not fearing death is easier said than done.

Who wrote the swerve?

What is death for Epicurus?

Death, Epicurus insists, is nothing to us, since while we exist, our death is not, and when our death occurs, we do not exist (LM 124–25); but if one is frightened by the empty name of death, the fear will persist since we must all eventually die.

What is swerve by Sarah swerve about?

Swerve is a young adult novel that tells the story of 16 year old Hugh Twycross, a talented cellist with a bright future.

What is the swerve by Stephen Greenblatt?

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (paperback edition: The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began) is a book by Stephen Greenblatt and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

What is a swerve in physics?

“The Swerve” refers to a key conception in the ancient atomistic theories according to which atoms moving through the void are subject to clinamen: while falling straight through the void, they are sometimes subject to a slight, unpredictable swerve.

What is Chapter 8 of “the swerve” about?

Chapter eight of The Swerve, “The Way Things Are,” breaks out the point-by-point reality of Epicureanism, and is the prime motivating factor for my five-star rating. (In fact, I dislike Poggio Bracciolini, the discoverer of De rerum natura, quite intensely, and suspect that had I met him in life, I would have been repulsed by him.)