On two rewritings of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura proem by Alejandro Korn

Abstract

We present two rewritings of De Rerum Natura’s proem by Alejandro Korn, which are part of the archival funds of the Alejandro Korn People’s University (UPAK) in La Plata. Following a presentation on the archival fund and the connections between Lucretius’s work and the academic work of the philosopher from La Plata, we present a comparison between the original Latin text, Rodríguez-Nava (1892) translation, and the rewritings, through which we aim to demonstrate that the latter were based on this translation, with the original text at hand. We believe that these rewritings served as teaching material for presenting Epicurean doctrine in the history of philosophy courses taught by Korn, and, based on the connections drawn between poetry and philosophy in these courses, we observe that the aforementioned proem was used to illustrate the explanation of Epicurean ethics. The publication of these unpublished documents aims to highlight UPAK’s funds and make it available for future research. At the same time, by presenting a new reading of a Latin source, it is possible to trace how Argentine intellectuals of the early 20th century drew upon the Greco-Roman tradition.