Classics

Simon Trépanier awarded British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship

Warmest congratulations to Dr Simon Trépanier, Lecturer in Classics, who has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for 2017-18, for a project on ‘Lucretius and the New Empedocles'. (Published 12 Apr, 2017)

Dr Simon Trepanier

Dr Simon Trépanier, Lecturer in Classics, has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for 2017-18, for a project on ‘Lucretius and the New Empedocles.’

'I am delighted with the award and very much looking forward to the work,' said Dr Trépanier. 'The study builds on my earlier work on Empedocles and on several years of teaching Epicurus and Lucretius. The plan is to use the study to expand my research into aspects of Epicureanism.'

Lucretius’ 'De Rerum Natura', a Latin six-book didactic epic on Epicureanism, is one of the most influential works from Classical antiquity. Modern scholarship has come to recognize the influence of Empedocles, the Greek fifth-century philosopher-poet, upon its literary format. Empedocles was the Greek master of Lucretius’ chosen genre, philosophical didactic poetry. Since 1999 our knowledge of Empedocles has been completely transformed by the newly discovered Strasbourg papyrus. The project will explore several new aspects of Empedoclean influence on Lucretius, including Lucretian use of Empedoclean imagery and literary techniques, the adaptation of Empedocles’ didactic plot —that of a god-like master initiating his disciple into divinity— and the first study of the immediate background, the Hellenistic philosophical reception of Empedocles.

Dr Trépanier's staff profile