Lucretius 3 Structure Flashcards
1-30
Prologue: Praise is Epicurus’ ‘On Nature’ and his philosophical discovery that there is no hell
31-93
Prologue: Demonstration that the fear of death is at the root of human happiness and the chief cause of vices
94-416
The nature of mind and spirit, i.e. the soul
94-135
Argument against the theory that the souls is not a separate entity, but a harmonia of the body
136-160
Mind and spirit are related, forming one compound
161-176
Mind and soul are corporeal
177-230
Structure of mind and soul
231-322
The composite nature of the soul, which is made up of 4 substances: breath, heat, air and a 4th nameless substance
323-416
The relationship of body and soul
427-829
Arguments for the mortality of the mind and spirit, ie soul (30 proofs), which includes arguments against the pre-existence of the soul
417-424
Introduction to the arguments for the mortality of the soul - self-reflexive passage on the pleasures of poetic composition
425-659
The mind and spirit (soul) does not survive after death (16 proofs)
670-783
The mind and spirit (soul) does not exist before birth (10 proofs)
784-829
General considerations against the mortality of the mind and spirit (soul) (4 proofs)
830-1094
Ethical section: Consolatio for the feat of death, developing the 2nd master saying of Epicurus: ‘death is nothing to us’
830-869
The symmetry argument
870-893
Attitude to the disposal of one’s own corpse suggests illusion of survival after death
894-911
Mourners’ expressions of grief
912-930
The symposium: analysis and critique of the ‘cape diem’ philosophy of the hedonistic symposiasts, which masquerades as a popular form of Epicureanism
931-971
The Prosopopoeia of Natura, directed at those who are unwilling to leave the ‘banquet’ of life, and the accompanying comments of the didactic poet
972-977
Symmetry argument, probably to be taken with the ensuing argument
977-1023
Hell exists in this life or ‘the fool’s life at length becomes a hell on earth’
1025-1052
Consolatio on why one should not resent dying: the ‘ubi sunt’ or ‘where are now…’ motif introduction the list of the illustrious dead
1053-94
Exhortation or protreptic to take up the study of natural philosophy, based on an analysis of the symptoms of spiritual malaise exhibited by a Roman grandee
