BÜCHNER, K.,
Beobachtungen über Vers und Gedankengang bei Lukrez.
Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin, 1936. VIII,126p. Sewn. Cardboard. Series: Hermes, Einzelschriften, Heft 1. (Rare). ‘Büchner’s essay is interesting and to my mind important. It is a study of the verse-structure of the ‘De Rerum Natura’ in relation to the sentence and more particularly to the thought of Lucretius. The arguments are clearly stated and the conclusions, if accepted, throw light on several much-discussed problems. The first chapter deals in the wider sense with the influence of though on structure. We are apt to expect from Lucretius a strict logical sequence, which we do not always find. In many places Lucretius is dominated by a thought remaining in his mind, to which he refers back over a long intervening period (…), or in anticipation by an idea which he has not yet made explicit (…). Büchner’s inferences are that some passages bracketed by editors as interrupting the sense may be retained, that lacunae have been assumed unnecessarily, and that obscure passages are thus submitted to close analysis; the results are nearly always convincing. (…) Chapters ii and iii are concerned with smaller stylistic questions, the most important of which is that of ‘enjambement’, the overlap of the sentence from one line to the next. (…) On the ground of the more frequent occurrence of ‘enjambement’ he infers that Books iii, iv and vi were written later than i, ii and v. Lucretius’ style was developing and he was using ‘enjambement’ for a conscious artistic purpose, as it is used by Virgil, whom Büchner for comparison submits to analysis. (…) The last part of the book is concerned with deductions from the consideration of ‘enjambement’. (…) In the work as a whole I find little to quarrel with; it is a very suggestive study which opens a new line of approach to the understanding of the poem. ‘ (CYRIL BAILEY in The Classical Review, 1937, pp.179-180).
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