The Language of Atoms: Performativity and Politics in Lucretius' De rerum natura

by W. H. Shearin

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The Language of Atoms argues that ancient Epicurean writing on language offers a theory of performative language. Such a theory describes how languages acts, providing psychic therapy or creating new verbal meanings, rather than passively describing the nature of the universe. This observation allows us new insight into how Lucretius, our primary surviving Epicurean author, uses language in his great poem, De rerum natura (On the Nature of
Things). The book begins with a double contention: on the one hand, while scholarship on Lucretius has looked to connect Lucretius' text to its larger cultural and historical context, it has...Read more
  • ISBN10 0190202424
  • ISBN13 9780190202422
  • Publish Date 15 January 2015 (first published 2 January 2015)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 232
  • Language English