La folie de Lucrèce, de l’origine du langage aux banquets d’illusion d’Athénée de Naucratis

Abstract

The tradition of the madness of Lucretius seems to be pure invention. We may however evoke the interest of Saussure for Lucretius’ “anagrams” to suggest that the worst torments of the poet perhaps lay in a contradiction between the Epicurean theory on the natural origin of language, always articulated with truth (V, 1028-1090), and the titanic labour which represented the Latin adaptation of the doctrine: other Epicureans would content themselves with comfortable illusions and lying words, sacrificing truth to pleasure, as it appears in some passages of Athenaeus.