Roman nature
How poetry helped one scholar understand his mother
August 04, 2011
Stephen Greenblatt.(Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Gazette)
Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt talks anxiety and nature with Blake Eskin in this week’s New Yorker podcast. Greenblatt says the Roman poet Lucretius—specifically his poem On the Nature of Things—helped him understand his Jewish mother and the blessings that, he explains, went “squandered” and “undigested” due to her fears.
His (subscription-only) essay on the ancient poem can also be found in the magazine’s August 8 edition.
The Pleasure Principle [New Yorker]
Earlier: Our Revenge on Wagner
Stephanie Butnick is the founder of GOLDA, a Jewish lifestyle newsletter. She hosted the Tablet podcast Unorthodox, co-authored The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia: From Abraham to Zabar’s and Everything in Between, and worked as a writer and editor at Tablet.
