... with contingency and unknowability: Thoroughly modern Lucretius.
This past summer Debbie and I paid a visit to the Brandywine River Museum to see an exhibition devoted to Elihu Vedder's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It may come as a surprise to readers of this blog that, temperamentally, I am very simpatico with the grim fatalism of the Rubaiyat and Lucretius - just as I have always admired the view of the heroes in the Norse sagas, that in the end the demons and the trolls will triumph, but it is the honorable thing to be on the side of the gods. The only trouble I have with these views is that I don't believe them.
Some might like A.E. Stalling's translation better than the Times reviewer. For a larger excerpt see here.
ReplyDeleteThat should be "A.E. Stallings'."
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