The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

Source of book: I own this

Anyone who, like me, cares about Shakespeare, or classic literature in general, is likely to have run across the name Stephen Greenblatt more than once. He is generally considered to be the founder of “New Historicism” as an approach to literary theory. Although obviously beyond the scope of this blog post, the central idea, as I understand it, is that literature is a product of its time, rather than the result of Great Men (and occasionally women) of Genius™. In this sense, it parallels the shift from a “Great Man” theory of history to one of cultural movements and moments. As it applies to, say, Shakespeare, you would have Harold Bloom on the one hand, arguing that Shakespeare changed everything about how we think of humanity, and Greenblatt on the other, arguing that Shakespeare came about as a result of the cultural moment he was born into. (Note: both of these are huge oversimplifications of both positions.) One might call it the cultural/historical/artistic “nature versus nurture” argument. My own view, having read both Bloom and Greenblatt (and Ron Rosenbaum’s marvelous book on Shakespeare, The Shakespeare Wars, which addresses both sides) is that there is some truth to each. 

This is kind of an introduction to The Swerve, which actually isn’t about either Shakespeare or literary theory. It did, however, win the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and is a thoroughly fascinating book. 

The Swerve is the story of the recovery of On The Nature of Things, a long poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus, known to us as Lucretius. While Lucretius was hugely influential in his lifetime - the late days of the Roman Republic - and afterward, his works largely disappeared during the Middle Ages. Most, sadly, have been lost forever. On The Nature of Things survived, however, and was rediscovered by Poggio Bracciolini in 1417. To Poggio, we owe the preservation of a long list of classical works, and his efforts were - as Greenblatt describes - crucial to the Renaissance, and indeed to modernity itself. 

In writing this book, Greenblatt decided to fill in quite a bit of background, from what is known of Lucretius, to the Epicureans who influenced him. Sadly, Epicurus’ writings have been mostly lost, and are known only through those who wrote about him later. That said, Lucretius was an Epicurean, and his poem does give us a lot of information about what they believed. The story starts, however, with the Renaissance. 

The Renaissance was always a troublesome topic for the Fundamentalist subculture I grew up in - particularly evident in the religious history curriculum. For ideological reasons, it was necessary to address the Middle Ages, and either defend it as a golden age when religion had vast secular political power (see: Doug Wilson), or explain it in a way that makes a distinction between Roman Catholic theocracy and Protestant Dominionism. Neither approach is particularly truthful about the Renaissance, of course, because honesty would require an admission that much of the history of organized Christianity is, well, embarrassing as hell. 

There is some truth to the idea that the Middle Ages got a bad rap, of course. And any argument that starts with glorifying the Roman Empire is bound to lead to problems of various kinds. (As Clive James put it, the pax romana and the pax sovietica have a lot in common, namely totalitarianism and violence.) But, on the other hand, some facts are pretty hard to dispute. When Christianity took over the failing near-corpse of the Empire, it took a catastrophic anti-intellectualist approach to knowledge, leading to the destruction of hundreds of years of writing on science, philosophy, medicine, politics, ethics, and much more. This base of knowledge was largely forgotten (in the West, at least) for a thousand years, and had to be “discovered” all over again. And when they did come to light through the efforts of Poggio and others, the Church repressed and persecuted and slaughtered to try to keep the truths known to the Greeks and Romans from coming to light. That’s the inconvenient truth. 

The rediscovery of ancient writing and art led to the Renaissance. Which led to the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment and modern democracy and the Scientific Revolution and a renewed belief in human rights. 

There is no doubt, in any case, that something huge happened in the Renaissance. 

Something happened in the Renaissance, something that surged up against the constraints that centuries had constructed around curiosity, desire, individuality, sustained attention to the natural world, the claims of the body. 

And this is, I think, still at the heart of the Culture Wars™ that continue to roil our own society. Fundamentalists and theocrats of all ages have always sought to place constraints on curiosity, on desire, on individuality, on science, and on embodiment. Greenblatt specifically notes the worship of pain and suffering as “spirituality”: the floggings, the sleep deprivation, and other “disciplines” in the service of spirituality. All these were threatened by the Renaissance. 

The first few chapters tell of the life of Poggio, who was quite the fascinating character. He was, for much of his life, an employee of the Church, including a job as the private secretary to the Pope. He was not clergy, however, but a layman, and thus could (and eventually did) marry. He was also, as his writings give ample evidence, snarky as hell. Here is a bit of his opinion of monks:

With his friends in the curia, Poggio shared jokes about the venality, stupidity, and sexual appetite of monks. And their claims to piety left him unimpressed: “I cannot find that they do anything but sing like grasshoppers, and I cannot help thinking they are too liberally paid for the mere exercise of their lungs. They extol their labor as a kind of Herculean task, because they rise in the night to chant the praises of God. This is no doubt an extraordinary proof of merit, that they sit up to exercise themselves in psalmody. What would they say if they rose to go to the plough, like farmers, exposed to the wind and rain, with bare feet, and with their bodies thinly clad?” 

Just reading the bits about the popes of the time contained in this book is enough for one to seriously doubt Catholic dogma. And, in a way, to appreciate that modern popes are relatively well behaved. 

After giving the background on Poggio (which is a great story by itself), Greenblatt turns to the Epicureans, who are the most misunderstood of the Greek schools of philosophy. Epicurus himself was quite the ascetic in his personal life: he taught that the highest pleasure consisted in being a consistently good and moral person. 

Hey wait a minute…

Yes, the stereotype of Epicureans as libertines and gluttons and immoral greedy graspers is completely false. It was invented by early Christian philosophers who saw that Epicureans were a serious theological threat for other reasons, and decided to slander them so that the real issues would never be discovered. (And yes, there is solid proof of this in the surviving writings.) 

At the heart of the issue was the fact that Epicureans subscribed to a naturalistic view of reality. Following the view of Democritus, they believed that the natural world consisted of “atoms” - tiny indivisible particles which combined in an infinite variety according to the laws of nature and the accidents of chance, and formed everything. 

Hmm, that actually sounds...right? 

Following up on this, the Epicureans believed that while the gods may exist, they cannot possibly care about the mere natural world. Furthermore, they believed that the soul (if it even existed) died with the body, and that thus, there was no afterlife. And, because of this, there was no point in living in fear - like religion peddled - and that it was perfectly legitimate to seek to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. 

One might divide the beliefs up into the scientific (what is the nature of reality?) and philosophical (how shall we live?) Philosophy, of course, is a matter of belief and opinion. We have literally been talking about these ideas since the dawn of human history. 

But science? Well, it is astonishing how prescient Epicurus, Lucretius, and the Epicureans really were. These sound more like Modern Era beliefs, not ancient ones. Here is a partial list:

-          Everything is made of atoms

-          The elementary particles of matter are eternal

-          The elementary particles are vast in number, but limited in kind

-          All particles are in motion in an infinite void

-          Nature ceaselessly experiments, leading to variety arising from natural processes

-          The universe was not created solely for humans

-          Human society began, not in a golden age, but in a primitive battle for survival

-          Understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder

-          There is a hidden natural explanation for everything that alarms or eludes you

That does sound a bit modern, right? And rather like mainstream science too. Few even in the general culture would dispute the existence of atoms, and the rest of it, including the fact that there is a natural explanation for pretty much everything, even if we haven’t found it yet. (The greatest problem with the “God in the Gaps” argument is that it leads to an ever-shrinking god…) 

The Epicureans were indeed right about a whole lot, but they weren’t the only ones. It is quite astonishing to look back to ancient times and realize that the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Chinese, and other great civilizations of the distant past knew a lot of what we “discovered” in the last 600 years.

Case in point: 2200 years ago, Eratosthenes not only knew that the earth was round (which was known LONG before he came along), he calculated its actual circumference within 1% of its actual value. Which, considering the rather primitive measuring equipment he had, is amazing. 

Which means that Columbus, in addition to being a nasty, evil man, was also a freaking idiot. The idea that he and he alone believed in a round earth is silly on its face, but also: he should have known that he had travelled less than half the way around. (You can file this under “things history books gloss over because they make European ‘heroes’ look less heroic.”) 

In addition to this, the passage in the book on the Library of Alexandria, and its sad demise is worth reading. Particularly infuriating was the murder - lynching really - of Hypatia, one of the most badass women - a respected polymath and philosopher in her day. Her lynching had the effect (among others) of destroying any chance of peace between the forces of Christianity, and “pagan” philosophers. It remains a stain on the legacy of the Church and a tragedy which still reverberates in our own time, under the banner of “religion versus science.” 

Another related idea with the same general theme is the term “humanist.” In Poggio’s time, there were two movements within the Roman Catholic world. One was the Fundamentalism which led eventually to the Inquisition. The other went by the name of “humanism.” These days, we call it by the name “Christian Humanism” to distinguish it from a more secular version - and it had a tremendous impact on the future. We owe the whole idea of religious tolerance to the Humanist movement. And such things as modern science, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and so on. In the Renaissance, the two big names were two of my own heroes: Thomas More, and Erasmus. Also considered to be Christian Humanists would be Soren Kirkegaard, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot. (Hey, some of my favorite writers!) If I were to describe my own belief system, I think that would be the most accurate way to describe it. I am a Christian Humanist, and have been as long as I can remember, even if I didn’t know the term. (That might be an interesting future post.) 

Poggio and his fellow “humanists” spent their spare time finding, reading, and copying ancient manuscripts. In doing so, they preserved much of what we know about Greek and Roman literature. But they also invented a new kind of handwriting. 

What Poggio accomplished, in collaboration with a few others, remains startling. They took Carolingian miniscule - a scribal innovation of the ninth-century court of Charlemagne - and transformed it into the script they used for copying manuscripts and writing letters. This script in turn served as the basis for the development both of italics and of the typeface we call “roman.” They were then in effect the inventors of the script we still think of as at once the clearest, the simplest, and the most elegant written representation of our words.

The Swerve also spends a good bit of time looking at a crucial dispute between the humanists (and the Epicureans) and the Roman Church: the use of fear for profit. Reformer and martyr Jan Hus gets a few pages, in particular his denouncement of the sale of “indulgences” as a shameless attempt to profit from the fears of the faithful. Fears the Church instilled in the first place. One thing this book does well is tie together the objection of Epicureans/humanists/reformers of all eras to the Fundamentalist project, which is to exert control by use of fear. 

One fascinating episode in the book occured in the aftermath of the execution of Jerome of Prague for heresy (Poggio was particularly horrified that he was arrested and killed after being promised safe conduct.) Still reeling, and unsure of his own position, Poggio visited the legendary baths and hot springs at Baden. There, he observed a rather different cultural environment, with naked bathing and, well, Epicurean living in action. He noted the usual drinking and singing, but also noted that there was no quarreling - everything was in fun. In pleasure. He had this to say about it:

We are terrified of future catastrophes and are thrown into a continuous state of misery and anxiety, and for fear of becoming miserable, we never cease to be so, always panting for riches and never giving our souls or our bodies a moment’s peace. But those who are content with little live day by day and treat any day like a feast day. 

I do not think it is an accident that our own day’s Fundamentalism is inextricably wedded to consumerism and the panicked pursuit of wealth. It is a never-ending rat race, both materially and spiritually - and is actually the polar opposite to true Epicureanism. 

In contrast to the use of fear to control, and the rat race of futile attempts to obtain spirituality, Lucretius suggests a different approach. He wasn’t an atheist - more of a deist, like our founding fathers. He saw no problem in visiting religious shrines, provided you contemplate things “in peace and tranquility.” But the idea that religious observance can either anger or propitiate the gods seemed ludicrous to him. (And, come to think of it, Christ and the prophets seemed rather skeptical of religious observance as well…) The endless obsession of most religion with a god who is in turn obsessed with rewarding and punishing human beings rang hollow to Lucretius. 

Lucretius insisted that such hopes and anxieties are precisely a toxic form of superstition, combining in equal measure absurd arrogance and absurd fear. 

Amen!

The serious issue is that false beliefs and observances inevitably lead to human mischief.

AMEN!

That got good really fast. This is, in my experience, one hundred percent true. My former faith tradition (white Evangelicalism) is obsessed with their hopes and fears about getting things exactly right so God doesn’t fry them for eternity. It’s Salvation by Faith...in the Rules™. And it does indeed exhibit both absurd arrogance (tell me about it...this is like my life experience with Fundies) and absurd fear of getting things wrong, and worse, being too damn accepting and kind to those outside the increasingly narrow tribe. This is the mischief that results. Fear and arrogance combine to produce hate and a pathological lack of empathy for those who look or believe differently. 

Lucretius had an explanation for this too - and Greenblatt lays it out eloquently. 

The arts of civilization - not given to man by some divine lawmaker but painstakingly fashioned by the shared talents and mental power of the species - are accomplishments worth celebrating, but they are not unmixed blessings. They arose in tandem with the fear of the gods, the desire for wealth, the pursuit of fame and power. All of these originated in a craving for security, a craving that reaches back to the earliest experiences of the human species struggling to master its natural enemies. That violent struggle - against the wild beasts that threatened human survival - was largely successful, but the anxious, acquisitive, aggressive impulses have metastasized. In consequence, human beings characteristically develop weapons that turn against themselves.

This has been my argument with Fundamentalists over the very nature of the Bible, and the connected questions of morality and ethics. We really cannot separate any historical system of ethics from history and culture - or our lizard brains. Which is why a rule and fear based approach to the Bible and to religion itself leads, not to some return to a golden utopian age, but to the mere re-creation of the injustices and evils of the past. Inevitably, this also leads to jihad against people who are different. 

Whether or not Greenblatt proves his case about just how much Lucretius and The Nature of Things was responsible for the modern era and modern thought is debatable. But there is no doubt that the discovery of the literature of the past opened new vistas of thought and eventually shattered the fear and authoritarian power of toxic religion, and made the Enlightenment and our modern era possible. Steven Pinker has made a solid case that these inherently modern ideas: separation of church and state, the golden rule as the basis for all morality, equality and human rights, and the realization that “shit happens” - have greatly reduced violence. We can certainly recognize the influence of Lucretius and the Epicureans in this change, from the Enlightenment to the Utilitarians.

This book is a fascinating bit of history, regardless of your personal philosophical leanings. I myself, as a Christian Humanist, would love to read Lucretius now, which means Greenblatt succeeded. The book itself is well written - not dry at all, despite significant intellectual and historical content.  

***

If you are interested in reading something shorter, but definitely fascinating, by Greenblatt, his article in The New Yorker on St. Augustine and sex is excellent.

It is a bit disturbing to realize just how much of Western Christianity's toxic relationship with sex comes from a guy whose formative years were shaped by his parents' bad marriage and his mother's unhealthy, quasi-sexual relationship with him.