REMINDER: SUNDAY WEEKLY ZOOM - December 21, 2025 -12:30 PM EDT - Ancient Text Study: De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (starting up at Line 80) -- Meeting is open to Level 03 members and above.
I am a BIG fan of Natalie Haynes and now she's finally done an episode of "Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics" on Lucretius.
Other than getting the "size of the sun" shibboleth wrong 
it's a delightful and positive stand up for Lucretius. Enjoy.
Very lively presentation. Thank you! I especially liked the guest who stressed the Roman attitude that Epicureanism can be explained in simple words.
It's interesting what people choose to stress. I like her choice of topics - mostly physics - but I think I am now halfway through and I have not heard the word "pleasure." (Did hear one use of "happiness" in passing)
Good that she points out the difference with the Stoics on the Epicurean view of free will.
Well a major disappointment: at 23:58 she launches into ethics purely in terms of Ataraxia and Aponia without a single use of the word pleasure. So she doesn't have the excuse that she's only talking about physics
She does close the presentation by saying ...you should embrace Lucretius and be happy... but the elephant in the room is the amazing British tendency to elevate "tranquility" and demote the word "pleasure" as if they want to entirely strip "pleasure" from Epicurean Philosophy.
Yes indeed I agree that. In general it's a very positive presentation.
Britain has so much Stoicism in its blood that I suspect we will never see anything BUT that interpretation over there. It's an interesting issue.