Ennian Poetology and Literary Affiliation in Lucretius

This chapter adduces Ennius’ own metaphors for literary tradition and affiliation, specifically metempsychosis and the heart, in order to suggest that one of Lucretius’ central aims in the DRN is to undermine Ennius’ literary-historical claims by appropriating and destroying the psychological metaphor that Ennius insisted upon. Lucretius complicates this metaphor while making constant reference to Epicurean physics, thereby literalizing Ennius’ metaphors to show that they are incompatible with the nature of things. As a consequence of investigating how Lucretius goes about correcting Ennius, this chapter argues that Lucretius rejects conventional ideas of literary affiliation and poetology and that he articulates this rejection in terms of the physical first principles of Epicureanism. In short, Lucretius uses Ennius against himself in order to assert the insignificance—and, if we extend Lucretius’ arguments to their logical conclusions, the unreality—of any conventional notion of literary tradition.