Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction
Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things , by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.
The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson. 16 pages full-color illustrations
Stephen Greenblatt (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Also General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, he is the author of eleven books, including Tyrant, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (winner of the 2011 National Book Award and the 2012 Pul...
- 本书获普利策奖，讲述15世纪教廷书记官波焦在修道院偶然发现卢克莱修《物性论》手稿，这一事件如何打破中世纪思想禁锢，推动文艺复兴并奠定现代科学理性基础的历史过程。
- 作者格林布拉特运用新历史主义方法，细致还原15世纪欧洲政治、宗教与文化生态，展现古典文献在修道院中艰难保存、被重新发掘的曲折历程，揭示知识传承的脆弱性与偶然性。
- 书中深入探讨伊壁鸠鲁哲学中关于原子论、灵魂随肉体消亡、死亡并非恐怖等激进观点，分析这些思想如何挑战教会权威，促使人类从对来世的恐惧转向关注现世幸福与理性探索。
- 对欧洲文艺复兴史、古典文献传播史及思想史演变感兴趣的读者，希望了解现代科学理性与人文主义思想起源，以及古代哲学如何影响当代价值观的深入探索者。
- 喜欢格林布拉特叙事风格，偏好阅读兼具学术严谨性与文学可读性的历史传记类作品的读者，能接受书中缓慢节奏与大量历史背景铺陈，不追求快节奏情节反转的读者。
- 对伊壁鸠鲁主义、原子论哲学或卢克莱修《物性论》有研究兴趣的学者与学生，希望从历史语境中理解这些思想被压制、遗忘及重新发现过程，反思宗教与科学关系的研究者。
- 本书叙事节奏较慢，包含大量15世纪欧洲政治、宗教及修道院生活细节，读者需耐心阅读，避免因缺乏紧凑情节而放弃，建议配合相关历史背景资料辅助理解复杂人物关系。
- 作者观点存在争议，部分读者认为其夸大单一手稿发现对现代性的影响，建议读者保持批判性思维，结合其他文艺复兴史著作对比阅读，不盲目接受书中因果推断与宏大叙事结论。
- 书中涉及大量拉丁文文献引用及哲学概念，中文译本可能存在理解障碍，建议有条件者阅读英文原版以体会作者文笔之美，或选择权威译本并仔细阅读注释，确保准确理解哲学内涵。
- 读者普遍认可作者文笔优美、博学多才，叙事流畅且具感染力，能生动再现历史场景与人物心理，尽管部分情节重复啰嗦，但整体阅读体验良好，被视为了解文艺复兴思想起源的优质入门读物。
- 多数读者批评作者过度拔高波焦发现手稿的历史意义，认为其将复杂历史进程简化为单一事件，逻辑牵强且缺乏学术严谨性，存在哗众取宠之嫌，对现代性起源的解释过于片面且欧洲中心主义。
- 尽管存在争议，读者仍肯定本书在普及古典哲学与历史知识方面的价值，认为其激发了对伊壁鸠鲁主义及理性思维的兴趣，虽非严谨学术专著，但作为大众历史读物仍具启发意义与阅读价值。
本导读基于书籍简介、目录、原文摘录、短评和书评生成，不等同于全文精读。
- "With his contrasting vision of anxious, work-obsessed, overly disciplined Italians and happy-go-lucky, carefree Germans..."
- "When the newly elected bishop of Hildesheim, in the north of Germany, asked to see the diocesan library, he was brought to the armory and shown the pikes and battleaxes hanging on the walls; these, he was informed, were the books with which the rights of the bishopric had been won and must be defend"
- "At first the copying was probably done in an improvised setting in the cloister...But in time special rooms were designated or built for the purpose...these were large rooms equipped with clear glass windows under which the monks, as many as thirty of them, sat at individual desks, sometimes partiti"
- ""He shall be compelled to read." It was this compulsion that, through centuries of chaos, helped to salvage the achievements of ancient thought."
- "Good parchment was far too valuable and scarce to be discarded. This value helps to account for the fact that monasteries collected ancient manuscripts in the first place and did not consign them to the rubbish."
- "我们害怕未来的灾难，害怕陷入持续的痛苦和焦虑之中，因为害怕变得悲惨，我们从来没有停止过这样的生活，总是渴望财富，从来没有给我们的灵魂或身体片刻的 安宁。但那些满足于日常生活的人，把任何一天都当作节日。"
- "所有其他的诉求一一服务于国家、神灵或统治者的荣耀，通过自我牺牲对美德的艰苦追求一一是次要的、误导或欺诈性的。"
- "塞拉皮翁垮台之后，一位异教诗人帕拉达斯（Pallads）表达了他黯然伤神的心情： 我们真的死了吗； 还是只活在表面， 我们希腊人，陷入灾难 生活如梦，既然我们还活着， 而我们的生活方式已然逝去？ 毁灭的意义，如帕拉达斯所理解的，不仅仅是一个用于拜的偶像的消失。在这种情况下，这次大破坏是否殃及图书馆尚不清楚。但图书馆、博物馆和学校是脆弱的机构：它们无法在暴力的攻击下长期存留。一种生活方式正在消亡"
