This course is designed to increase your speed and accuracy in reading Lucretius’ De rerum natura. We shall read approximately 3,000 verses of the poem with special attention to grammar, style, and the art of translation. In a further study of style and translation, we shall frequently look at passages from Vergil which imitate and adept passages from Lucretius. As an exercise to think of translation, style, and reception, writing assignments shall include close comparison of your own translation 1) to one from the late seventeenth century (by Hutchinson, Creech, or Dryden), 2) to a modern translation, and 3) to Lucretius’ Latin.