I first read
The
Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt when it came out. I must revisit it and
reacquaint myself with that old book hunter,
Poggio
Bracciolini. Greenblatt begins with his own book hunting adventure that
happened one summer while he was at Yale. He discovered a copy of Lucretius’
classical two thousand year old poem
On
the Nature of Things for ten cents. The power of the book was its take on
the place of the atom in our lives. The importance of this book on thinkers
throughout the ages is the subject of this book. I am reminded of the time when
I was eighteen years old and discovered Shakespeare’s
Troilus and Cressida in the USO library in Qui Nhon, Vietnam where
I was a soldier. For me that play was to be the subject of many papers in
college and eventually further study in Stratford-upon Avon. Lucretius’ point
that the atom was the center of the universe was blasphemy in his day and even
in the days in which it was rediscovered a thousand years later and then by
Greenblatt when its contents make sense. The same can be said of my discovery
of
Troilus and Cressida while I’m at
war far from my home written by Shakespeare who borrowed it from Chaucer who
borrowed it from Homer.
How is it
that ancient authors still have power two thousand or more years later? We all
have a book that changed our lives. What is yours?
Greenblatt contends that this book is a part of what he
calls the swerve, that event that shapes the future, a moment when things
change so as to cause a major change in thinking, such as a time we call the
Renaissance, that time after so many years in darkness, we all at once see so
many great minds collaborating at the same time that leads to our modern days?
The copying of this book, its distribution, and its place in so many lives and
deaths is that swerve of which Greenblatt speaks.
Poggio Bracciolini is a book hunter. He was the former
apostolic secretary to Cardinal Baldassare Cossa who called himself pope John
XXIII. Cossa became an antipope and was imprisoned in 1415 and Poggio was
released from duty. He then spent the rest of his life searching out ancient
texts particularly Roman texts scribed in Latin. Book hunters such as Poggio
and Plutarch, earlier were in search of the humanities, thus “The Humanists”
were born. The place for a fifteenth century book hunter to search for ancient
texts was in the old monasteries of Europe. Monks were required to read and in
turn acquire books by making copies of other people’s books. This practice was
forced on the monks in the sixth and seventh centuries because of the politics
and wars and destruction of any educational system. The only literate people
were the monks. These old monasteries were Poggio’s hunting grounds.
Who Lucretius, the poet, was isn’t exactly clear. Cicero
praised the poet for his insight, genius, and beauty of language. In fact he was
held in high regard by contemporary authors. On the Nature of Things is the only reference, which makes him a
one hit wonder like our own JD Salinger and John Kennedy Toole. He survives for
Poggio to find because of discoveries made in Herculaneum, a city when Mt
Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. This was a time between the gods and the savior. Man
ruled and his intellect was his tool. Greenblatt weaves history and conjecture
together wonderfully, sort of how the gene was replicated in Jurassic Park, the
movie. Recovering these ancient scrolls has been nearly a two hundred and fifty
year project. I can only imagine with huge regret how much was lost in trial
and error methods to recover these papyrus scrolls. We have so little of the
ancients in actual artifacts. What we do have is how authors allude to and
mention other authors and their work. This was a renaissance praised by the
later humanists, Plutarch and Bracciolini. The reason for so little has to do
with religion and how religious sects blossomed and destroyed what came before.
The great libraries of the world are evidence enough. The great divide comes
over pleasure in conflict with pain. Epicurus and Jesus are opposed. The
Christians promote pain through whippings and suffering to emulate Jesus. There
are no references to Jesus ever being happy, laughing, telling a joke. It is
all weeping and sadness. Lucretius is an Epicurean and we are lucky some monk
in some monastery made copies of his poem On
the Nature of Things for Poggio to find in 1417.
The education of Poggio is fascinating. A humble beginning
outside Florence did not deter him from being part of the establishment of
Humanism and of clear handwriting. Handwriting was to be his ticket to Rome and
to history. He set off to Rome at the age of twenty-three and had already made
his mark as a writer who precedes Montaigne, a secular scholar to rival
Petrarch, and a mover and shaker in intellectual curiosity. His drive and curiosity
is crucial in later developments for man.
He writes, “Your Poggio is content with little and you shall
see this for yourself; sometimes I am free for reading, free from all care of
public affairs which I leave to my superiors. I live free as much as I can.”
After fifty years of working, Poggio retires with money and devotes himself to
his humanist ideals, book hunting and reading, and writing. This secular man,
this humanist who moved freely as the Pope’s secretary found himself free again
after the deposed Pope XXIII, a name not to be used until 1960’s, was gone.
Poggio now set out on his destiny like the atoms spoken about in the Poem he
was to find, which help thinkers think. On
the Nature of Things might be called an atheists treatise, but it is not.
The center of the argument is the atom, how it attaches and repels other atoms,
how it is the foundation for everything, the gods, man, the cattle, the fish,
the leaf. This is new and compelling thinking from a man from ancient Rome,
blasphemous for sure. For Poggio to be discovering it and then copying it for
his generation and for others who will follow, the text will rock the church
and thinking.
The swerves make such sense and certainly captured my
thinking about life, especially as we see it in its age-old battle with
religion and the origin of things. I wonder how many other Lucretius like folks
we have lost over time.