Seventeenth-century Cavalier poetry (by Jonson, Waller, Lovelace, Suckling, and Herrick) tends to focus on what the poet predictably wants from the material world, often based on analogies between plants and the desired objects, which are often young women. Metaphysical poetry of the same period (by King, Herbert, Donne, Whitney, Wroth, and Vaughan) focuses instead, often by a plant metaphor, on what the poet is, fears to be, and wishes to be. For the Cavalier poets, plants are primarily objects of sensual appetite: focal points of the male gaze, fruit for erotic cravings, and instruments of the carpe diem tradition. For the Metaphysical poets of the same period, plants are usually metaphors for the speakers’ own subjectivity, and instruments of the project of the nosce te ipsum tradition: knowing oneself matters more than seducing others. Other poets (Fane, Marvell, Traherne, and Lanyer) actively resist that binary distinction. Great House poems and feminist perspectives illuminate the social stakes in the opposing poetic tendencies.

Focusing on the revelation of Epicurean thanatology in the third book of On the Nature of Things, this essay argues that the most vehement strains of Lucretius’ diatribe against the fear of death are a polemic against kitsch. It explicates the pervasively frank, anti-kitsch stance of Epicureanism and explores how Lucretius combats kitsch, even as kitsch was enthusiastically circulated in other Roman contexts in the form of Epicurean objects and clichés. In the vignettes of the departed father and the maudlin drinkers in DRN 3, Lucretius draws our attention to the way that kitsch (the image of the stereotypically sweet children, the trite lamentation, the pseudo-philosophy, the falseness) occludes reality. The denunciation of kitsch is fundamental to Epicurean teaching: to deny that our metaphorical city has penetrable walls and to bemoan the eventuality of one’s own death is to refuse the nature of things.

The Introduction has three aims. First, it offers a new interpretation of the Seikilos epitaph, one of the most important musical documents from the ancient world. The chapter shows that we can use the Seikilos epitaph as a model for reading carpe diem. Second, the Introduction offers a short history of the carpe diem motif from Homer to late antiquity, analysing its key features and function. Third, the Introduction lays out the methodological framework of the thesis: it is argued that close analysis of the carpe diem motif can advance our understanding of presence, performance, and textuality. These themes have been central to literary studies in Classics and beyond.

Focusing on the revelation of Epicurean thanatology in the third book of On the Nature of Things, this essay argues that the most vehement strains of Lucretius’ diatribe against the fear of death are a polemic against kitsch. It explicates the pervasively frank, anti-kitsch stance of Epicureanism and explores how Lucretius combats kitsch, even as kitsch was enthusiastically circulated in other Roman contexts in the form of Epicurean objects and clichés. In the vignettes of the departed father and the maudlin drinkers in DRN 3, Lucretius draws our attention to the way that kitsch (the image of the stereotypically sweet children, the trite lamentation, the pseudo-philosophy, the falseness) occludes reality. The denunciation of kitsch is fundamental to Epicurean teaching: to deny that our metaphorical city has penetrable walls and to bemoan the eventuality of one’s own death is to refuse the nature of things.