Sources of the Itabiran machine: from Lucretius to Newton

Abstract

Looking for the origins of the world machine as an idea, we can find them back to the 1st century BC, passing through several moments of universal history: in Science, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, among others; in Literature, Lucretius, Dante, Camões, and Drummond, who published the poem “The Machine of the World” for the first time in the 1951 book Claro Enigma. While Dante and Camões build the machine of the world as a sign of discovery and fascination, and while, for the Italian, the machine appears from the self-purification, and, for the Portuguese, as a reward for his achievements, Drummond is faced with the fantastic explanation of the whole, which deviates him from the wonder and character of conquest of a supreme good.

Keywords

• Máquina do mundo
• Dante Alighieri
• Carlos Drummond de Andrade