Lucretii poemata: A linguagem política no De Rerum Natura
Claudia Beltrão da Rosa
Original title: Lucretii poemata: The language of politics in De Rerum Natura
Published in The Philosophical Tradition in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Epicureanism, Lucretius, Political Ideas.
Stupid, drunks and giants: satire, carnivalism and hedonism in Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) and François Rabelais (c. 1483-1553)
Mariano OLIVERA
Original title: De estultos, beodos y gigantes: sátira, carnavalismo y hedonismo en Erasmo de Rotterdam (1466-1536) y François Rabelais (c. 1483-1553)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Carnivalism, Epicureanism, Grotesque, Hedonism, Satire.
Satire was genuinely expressed as the disruptive and irritating power against the status quo of medieval and Renaissance society. A unique rhetorical and poetic element, loaded with critical expressions of a political, moral and pedagogical nature, associated with a hedonistic and impulsive vision of vitality. Consequently, related to the common and happy sense of the vulgar, the plebe “estulta” or “foolish” in front of the ascetic, the reflection and the mortified and rationalistic experience of the wise or solitary scholar. A biblical sentence illustrates it: Stultorum infinitus est numerus (“The number of fools is infinite”). Satire presents the world upside down, society upside down, the world revolutionized, happiness as foolishness. Finally, it shows us another perspective in which the pleasure and the hedonistic expression of the body have their privileged place in front of the rule and the monastic and ecclesiastical moral regulations. The writings Praise of the Madness of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Gargantúa and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (sixteenth century), mark important antecedents of satire (and its grotesque derivation) in philosophy and literature, where it is expressed in the first work a recovery of the epicurean philosophy and in the second the extreme hedonism in its grotesque character. The aim of our work is to indicate the carnivalesque-hedonistic vision and moral criticism expressed in such works.
The Rejection of the Epicurean Ideal of Pleasure in Late Antique Sources: Not Only Misunderstandings
Ilaria L. E. RAMELLI
Published in Pleasure in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Christian reception, Epicureanism, Gregory Nazianzen, Origen, Pleasure.
Epicureanism was seen by its opponents, both ‘pagan’ and Christian, as the philosophy of pleasure and atheism. From the theological point of view, the accusation of atheism was incorrect, since Epicurus and the Epicureans admitted of the existence of deities, and posited them as models of moral perfection, while denying their interest in human affairs, i.e. providence. This denial aimed at guaranteeing their imperturbability (ataraxia). From the ethical point of view, the ideal of pleasure (hēdonē), on which I shall concentrate here, was grossly misunderstood or distorted by the opponents of Epicureanism, who generally did not take into consideration the moderation, equilibrium, and serenity that the superior ‘catastematic pleasure’ (Epicurus’s real ideal of pleasure) involved. I shall analyse the attitude of late-antique sources, especially Christian, toward Epicureanism and its ethics. A great many of Usener’s and Arrighetti’s fragments of Epicurus indeed come from Christian late-antique authors, such as Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Lactantius, and Augustine, but other patristic authors should be added, such as Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. Even if patristic interest in Epicureanism is often critical, and sometimes imprecise or distorted, nevertheless it is tangible. I shall focus on the authors who make the most interesting use of Epicurean sources, particularly with respect to the ethical doctrine: Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Lactantius, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, Gregory Nyssen, and Nazianzen, the only one who really understood and praised Epicurus’s notion of hēdonē. I shall also argue that the fading away of the availability and use of good sources on Epicureanism, along with the disappearance of the Epicurean school itself, brought about an impoverishment in the understanding of, and hostility to, Epicurus and Epicureanism.
