How and how successfully does Lucretius win over his reader?
Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura is a piece of work discussing both the nature of the world and of humans, heavily influenced by the teachings of Epicurus. The passages that are to be covered talk about the needless fear of death and the nature of the development of love and lust within a person. However, in order for Lucretius to make people believe that his way of thinking is correct and should be listened to, it is necessary for him to employ certain devices. One of these is the use of popular or known pseudo-scientific theories and thinking. Through this, it is possible to reach a greater number of people by making his ideas easier to understand. Furthermore, Lucretius appeals to genuine concerns and experiences that people will have rather than to the theoretical and grand, which is very successful because people are more likely to take into account what someone has t say if it can directly apply to them and may help them. These are only two of the devices that will be discussed with regards to their effectiveness in winning over the reader.
Let us begin by discussing the use popular theories within the writing to win over the reader, because this is probably the most obvious form of persuasion. The teachings of Epicurus were very famous and well known, but Lucretius focuses on one particular one when talking about the needless fear of death. He mentions that “nothing has the power to stir our senses” in death not even if “we are brought back into our present state”. This refers to the belief of reincarnation with a new body and a new mind after some time following death. This would have won over the reader because the idea of being in a painless state, where one is shielded from the evils and pains of the world, is one that is very appealing and would have to some extent assuaged the anxieties of the reader. This is especially true at the time of when Lucretius was writing, because the turmoil of the late Republic would have seen many people embroiled in the violence and it would be hard to escape it. Therefore, the idea of being reborn into a new body, without the memory of previous life, would have massively enticed many readers. The idea of rebirth after pain is one which recurs in Virgil’s Aeneid book 6 when Aeneas is watching the great men of the past waiting for their souls to be washed and put into new bodies. Once again it was written after a period of civil war, and therefore the appeal of at least a short painless existence and rebirth anew would have been exciting and reason why people would be more ready to be won over by an argument.
Another device which is used very effectively by Lucretius is that of appealing to genuine concerns that people may have during their lives. This is in comparison to the ridiculousness of Ovid’s courting, or the extreme nature of Propertius’ love or the other worldly ponderings of other philosophers. Lucretius has a much more practical approach to his discussion. This is evident from how clearly he describes what happens with sexual arousal and love that is “the body makes for the source from which the mind is pierced by love”. This is only a sample of the accurate way in which Lucretius describes the different stages of love. Through the focus more on the physiology of love rather than the psychology of love, it allows for the reader to understand not only his emotions better, but also the argument put forward by the writre. His appealing to genuine concerns is also present in book 3 when he mentions that man “is stabbed by a secret dread” that there is pain after death. Once again the following discussion would appeal to the every person who reads the book as everyone is scared of that which they do not know of, the void beyond death. The fact that Lucretius is dealing with these realistic issues would win over more readers because everyone wants to answer questions which are part of their everyday lives but they cannot find a solution to. Thus, by offering a logical answer to them, Lucretius is able to wipe away any other speculation. In addition, the detailed description of the stages of love adds another level to his persuasive ability. This is because when a reader sees that a writer has so correctly observed, reported and recognised the signs of love, the reader himself is more likely to be won over by the rest of the argument. The reason for this being that once a trust has been built up, it remains for the whole of any subsequent writing. Lucretius is very clever in his appellation to the common because not only do this works appeal to a greater range of the readers’ emotions as they can more closely relate to the text, but also because it is simple to understand.
A further way in which Lucretius is able to win over his reader is through the use of familiar analogies and people in order to illustrate points that he is making much more clearly. This is evident in book four when he compares how the loving body points and makes towards the source of that desire to “the wounded normally fall in the direction of the wound” and how “bloods spurts in the direction of the blow”. This is a very effective analogy because Lucretius was writing during a time of social and military upheaval, and therefore it is more likely than not, that the reader would have some sort of knowledge as to what someone falling in battle would have looked like. Even in times of peace, this analogy loses nothing of its force or its effectiveness of winning over the reader, because even if they had not been witnesses to real battle, there is a huge chance that they would have seen gladiators perishing in the arena. In addition to this, there is the use of familiar characters from history. The fact that Scipio “gave his bones to the earth as if he were a pleb” and that the Xerxes “poured out spirit from a dying frame”, may have given the reader greater perspective as to his own fate. The message that all men must come to an end, regardless as to how immortal and unconquerable that they may seem in life. This is successful in purging the fear of death for the reader because not only does it help them accept death as an inevitability, but indirectly suggests that all the fears surrounding death plagued even those who were not seen as ordinary mortals. The knowledge that others are in the same position, psychologically affects the reader as they are calmed by this knowledge. Whether Lucretius knew this is debatable, but it is clear that he saw a link between community thinking and confidence.
Finally, Lucretius attempts to win over his reader through his tactic of rationalising and explaining myths as human constructs rather than as truly ethereal beings, which is a quintessential feature of Epicureanism. In book four, he says that, all the traits of arousal and the physiological feeling of love that he has described, “are Venus to us”. It is important to note that he does not use love as in “amor” nor Cupid, but the celestial personification of love. The reasoning here might just be the usual argument that Venus and love are interchangeable words, or that Venus fits in with the scansion, but it could also be that he is saying that the gods are a human invention, something which represents a concept which otherwise would need to many words to describe it. By doing so, he is winning over the reader because it is a very shocking assertion, breaking with tradition and making the reader realise that the source of their emotions is not someone else, but themselves. This will lead to personal emotional empowerment of the reader which would make the text more convincing as people like to be flattered. Similarly, in book three, Lucretius is quick to point out that the “torments of hell… are present here and now, in our own lives”, which he them follows up by explaining how certain parts of the underworld are real, but only because they are self inflicted when an individual is alive. This is effectively used by Lucretius to win over an audience as he shows them that they can overcome their personal and metaphorical demons in the real world, with relative ease, meaning that they have nothing to fear in death.
Overall, it is clear that Lucretius has a multi-faceted approach to make his writing much more persuasive. The effectiveness of his devices are consistently successful in trying to convey his message to the reader, with only a few of his attempts having any ambiguity at all. However, by far the most successful is the appeal to the normal human being, through discussion of genuine concerns that he may have. Lucretius tries extremely hard to convince his reader that there is no need for a fear of death, however, as Segal relates to us, he does not address the fear of punishment of the soul, nor the suffering while dying, nor the intuitive fear of annihilation. While the reader may have had his fear assuaged on the nature of bodily suffering after death, these others, potentially more important, fears are left out completely. One can only speculate as to why he did not address these issues, whether he did not have logical answers and metaphors to deal with them aptly or possibly, even he realised that the Epicurean ideal of ataraxia, is not actually possible. Therefore, it is not possible to conclude that all of his devices to win over an audience are successful because this is a problem common to all of them.
Bibliography:
Reinhardt- The Speech of Nature in Lucretius
Reinhardt- Readers in the Underworld
Segal- Lucretius on Death and Anxiety
Warren- Lucretius, Symmetry Arguments and Fearing Death
Anderson- Discontinuity in Lucretian Symbolism
Betensky- Lucretius and Love
Cambridge Companion to Epicurus
Cambridge Companion to Lucretius
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