Everything about Consolation Of Philosophy totally explained
Consolation of Philosophy (
Latin:
Consolatio Philosophiae) is a
philosophical work by
Boethius, written in about the year
AD 524. It has been described as the single most important and influential work in the West on
Medieval and early
Renaissance Christianity, and is also the last great Western work that can be called Classical.
Consolation of Philosophy
Consolation of Philosophy was written during Boethius' one year imprisonment while awaiting trial, and eventual horrific execution, for the crime of
treason by
Ostrogothic King
Theodoric the Great. Boethius was at the very heights of power in
Rome and was brought down by treachery. This experience inspired the text, which reflects on how evil can exist in a world governed by God, and how happiness can be attainable amidst fickle fortune, while also considering the nature of happiness and God. It has been described as "by far the most interesting example of prison literature the world has ever seen."
Boethius writes the book as a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy. She consoles Boethius by discussing the transitory nature of fame and wealth ("no man can ever truly be secure until he's been forsaken by Fortune"), and the ultimate superiority of things of the mind, which she calls the "one true good". She contends that happiness comes from within, and that one's virtue is all that one truly has, because it isn't imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.
Boethius engages questions such as the nature of
predestination and
free will, why
evil men often prosper and good men fall into ruin,
human nature,
virtue, and
justice. He speaks about the nature of free will versus
determinism when he asks if God knows and sees all, or does man have free will. To quote V.E. Watts on Boethius,
God is like a spectator at a chariot race; He watches the action the charioteers perform, but this doesn't cause them. On human nature, Boethius says that humans are essentially good and only when they give in to “wickedness” do they “sink to the level of being an animal.” On justice, he says criminals are not to be abused, rather treated with sympathy and respect, using the analogy of doctor and patient to illustrate the ideal relationship between criminal and prosecutor.
Boethius sought to answer religious questions without reference to Christianity, relying solely on natural philosophy and the Classical
Greek tradition. He believed in harmony between faith and reason. The truths found in Christianity would be no different from the truths found in philosophy. In the words of Henry Chadwick, "If the
Consolation contains nothing distinctively Christian, it's also relevant that it contains nothing specifically pagan either...[it] is a work written by a Platonist who is also a Christian, but isn't a Christian work."
Influence
From the
Carolingian epoch to the end of the Middle Ages and beyond, this was the most widely copied work of secular literature in Europe. It was one of the most popular and influential philosophical works, read by statesmen, poets, and historians, as well as of philosophers and theologians. It is through Boethius that much of the thought of the Classical period was made available to the Western Medieval world. It has often been said Boethius was the “last of the Romans and the first of the Scholastics”. The Middle Ages, with their vivid sense of an overruling fate, found in Boethius an interpretation of life closely akin to the spirit of Christianity. The
Consolation of Philosophy stands, by its note of fatalism and its affinities with the Christian doctrine of humility, midway between the pagan philosophy of
Seneca the Younger and the later Christian philosophy of consolation represented by
Thomas Aquinas.
The book is heavily influenced by
Plato and his
dialogues (as was Boethius himself). Its popularity can in part be explained by its
neoplatonic and Christian ethical messages, although current scholarly research is still far from clear exactly why and how the work became so vastly popular in the Middle Ages. Notably, the book hasn't received much attention in the recent modern era, possibly in part because of its foreign inward looking virtues and rejection of the modern emphasis on material productiveness.
Boethian influence can be found nearly everywhere in
Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry, for example in
Troilus and Criseyde,
The Knight's Tale,
The Clerk's Tale,
The Franklin's Tale,
The Parson's Tale and
The Tale of Melibee, in the character of Lady Nature in
The Parliament of Fowls and some of the shorter poems, such as
Truth,
The Former Age and
Lak of Stedfastnesse. Chaucer translated the work in his
Boece.
Many 19th century poets reference Boethius.
Tom Shippey in
The Road to Middle-earth says how “Boethian” much of the treatment of evil is in
Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings. Shippey says that Tolkien knew well the translation of Boethius that was made by King Alfred and he quotes some “Boethian” remarks from Frodo, Treebeard, and Elrond.
Boethius and
Consolatio Philosophiae are cited frequently by the main character Ignatius J. Reilly in the
Pulitzer Prize-winning
A Confederacy of Dunces (1980).
"The Consolation of Philosophy" is also a noted surrealist painting by the artist Jamman.
It is a
prosimetrical text, meaning that it's written in alternating sections of
prose and metered
verse. In the course of the text, Boethius displays a virtuosic command of the forms of
Latin poetry. It is classified as a
Menippean satire, a fusion of
allegorical tale,
platonic dialogue, and lyrical poetry.
In the 20th century there were close to four hundred manuscripts still surviving, a testament to its former popularity.
Further Information
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