boethius and the consolation of philosophy

Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 30.

A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages. Kaylor, Noel Harold, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips, eds. Boethius: His Life, Thought, and Influence. Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.ĭonato, Antonio. Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.Ĭhadwick, Henry. “The Literature of Confinement.” In The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, edited by Norvel Morris and David J. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945.Ĭarnochan, W. Translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.Ĭassiodorus. The Theological Tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy. Boethian Number Theory: A Translation of the De Institutione Arithmetica. New York: Prometheus Books, 1987.īoethius. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Īristotle. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. In the Consolation, the narrator, with Lady Philosophy’s guidance, must come to terms with his sudden physical and spiritual imprisonment, “remember” the nature of being, and ultimately affirm the providence of God, who is the Highest Good ( summum bonum).

Boethius’s fall precipitated intense reflection-manifested in a dream-vision dialogue between the narrator and a personified Lady Philosophy-on such perennial human questions as the nature of good and evil, providence and free will, and time and eternity. He fell from the highest civilian office to the depths of prison, where he awaited the king’s order of execution. Boethius’s life and career reveal a Christian educated according to the classical tradition and dedicated to public service whose fortunes were reversed in a moment. 1 Although Boethius was not the first person to write an account of unjust incarceration, his Consolation participates in a rich tradition of literary works, both autobiographical and fictional, dealing with the experience of imprisonment and the quest for human freedom. 524) holds a prominent position in a long line of literary, political, and religious works produced by writers who were imprisoned and executed for their beliefs and whose words inspired later writers and thinkers to seek a higher and more lasting sense of truth and justice.

Boethius and the consolation of philosophy