Is the swerve a true story?

“But Swerve is an intense, emotional telling of a true story, one with much at stake for all of us. And the further you read, the more astonishing it becomes. It’s a chapter in how we became what we are, how we arrived at the worldview of the present.

What is the swerve book about?

Greenblatt tells the story of how Poggio Bracciolini, a 15th-century papal emissary and obsessive book hunter, saved the last copy of the Roman poet Lucretius’s De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from near-terminal neglect in a German monastery, thus reintroducing important ideas that sparked the modern age.

Did the swerve win the Pulitzer Prize?

The Swerve won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a top prize from the Modern Languages Association — all of which undoubtedly helped to bring Greenblatt’s lifetime of great work to the attention of the Holberg Prize committee.

Who wrote the swerve?

Stephen GreenblattThe Swerve / AuthorStephen Jay Greenblatt is an American Shakespearean, literary historian, and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Wikipedia

What is The Swerve according to Lucretius?

The swerve of the atoms occurs at uncertain times and places; otherwise Nature would never have created anything, as Lucretius suggested (DRN, 2.216- 293). The swerve is a small (paulum) deviation, just to the extent as to call it merely a change.

What is resonance and wonder?

… ‘Resonance’ marks the object as a representative of a distant culture or time, as a trace in foreign lands or in the past, into which it draws visitors and offers them new discoveries. ‘Wonder’ refers to the recipient’s astonishment and is related to the emotional effect of an object (Greenblatt 2004 ).

What is the swerve according to Lucretius?

What is Lucretius symmetry argument?

Lucretius’ observation forms the basis for the Symmetry Argument against the fear of death. The argument suggests that given the symmetry between the two temporal limits of our existence, our attitudes towards our birth and death should also be symmetrical.

What is wonder According to greenblat?

By wonder I mean the power of the displayed object to stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness, to evoke an exalted attention.

Who wrote the essay resonance and wonder *?

Stephen Greenblatt
In his short article “Resonance and Wonder,” Stephen Greenblatt explores two of the most central concepts that inform a museum-goer’s experience: resonance and wonder. While the article was written in 1990, the topic of resonance and wonder in museums is one that is still very relevant to museums today.

How does Lucretius argue against the fear of death in On the Nature of Things Book 3?

Lucretius employs a common dichotomy to organize his case against such fears: death is either the utter destruction of the person who dies, or it is not and the person survives in some form. Lucretius argues for two key claims: first, that there is no post-mortem survival and, second, that non-survival is not harmful.