For the record: I'm currently researching on Lucretius as a part of my MA in Philosophy. This article starts from an assumption on Lucretius intentions that is

For the record: I'm currently researching on Lucretius as a part of my MA in Philosophy. This article starts from an assumption on Lucretius intentions that is weird for anyone familiar with the author. The thing is: we actually know way too little about Lucretius to try to make any 'learned' guesses. However, I got the opposite impression reading the article. If that's the starting point of the author's argument, that somewhat taints its point. Fun fact: all we know about Lucretius is a conjecture. There are so many holes in who he was, how he lived, why he wrote, etc, that some researchers simply go off-script and invent whole biographies for Lucretius [1]. There is even those who go even further and simply state that Lucretius didn't even exist — he was a pseudonym for another author, Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of Cicero [2]. Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself [3]. Others that the poem was tampered by the renaissance humanists [4], trying to make it more coherent and complete. The point is: no one really knows. So, when I read/hear someone stating very confidently that Lucretius did this or that, that he was this or that person living this or that life, my alarm bells start ringing: there must be a bit of creative interpretation here that goes beyond what the historical facts allow. ——— [1] Guido Della Valle (1884-1962), according to the account of Carl Joachim Classen (1928–2013). [2] Aloïs Gerlo (1915-1998), on a paper titled Pseudo-Lucretius?. [3] Saint Jerome (c.347-420) was the first to make this claim. [4] Lee Fratantuono mentions this in his book A Reading of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.