Stephen Greenblatt

The Swerve

1. IDEA 1

   A lost poem was rediscovered

   Greenblatt tells how, in 1417, an Italian scholar named Poggio Bracciolini discovered a copy of an ancient Roman poem in a German monastery. The poem, Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, had been nearly lost for centuries.

2. IDEA 2

   Lucretius explained the world through atoms

   Greenblatt explains that the poem describes a universe made of tiny, eternal particles called atoms, moving through empty space. Everything, including humans, is formed by their combinations. Greenblatt shows that this view left little room for the idea that gods control the world.

3. IDEA 3

   Atoms swerve unpredictably

   Lucretius suggested that atoms sometimes swerve slightly from their paths, causing collisions that create new things. This idea allowed for change and free will. Greenblatt presents the swerve as the idea that nature is not fully fixed in advance.

All 8 ideas from The Swerve →