THE SWERVE by Stephen Greenblatt (Vintage, 2012)
This Pulitzer Prize winning book is “the story of how the world swerved in a new direction” when enlightened thinkers began to reject religious delusions in favor of humanist principles. The book’s subtitle is , according to which edition you read, either ‘how the Renaissance began’ or ‘how the world became modern’.
Harvard professor, Stephen Greenblatt argues persuasively that the foundation for much of the meaningful progress we take for granted stems from the epic poem ‘De rerum natura’ (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius which was written in the 1st century BC and rediscovered by an Italian book hunter named Poggio in 1417.
Greenblatt shows that Lucretius’ radical beliefs provided a vital alternative to the dark, deluded dogma which decreed curiosity to be a mortal sin and viewed pleasure as a vice.
Lucretius’ totally rejected the assertion that redemption would only come through abasement.
The inherently random swerve of the title is thus defined as “an unforeseen deviation from the direct trajectory” and “a source of free will”. Lucretius is portrayed as a key agent of change in the human pursuit of beauty that reached a peak during the Renaissance. Continue reading
