Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

De Consalatione Philosophiae

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAWPevQFq4

Historical Backdrop (~475-525)

• Unsteady Roman Empire divided between the East (Constantinople) and West (Ravenna)

• Theodoric’s worsening position (Acacian Schism resolved 519)

• “leader of a pro-imperial, pro-Byzantine group, victimized by an increasingly insecure king…a Catholic put to death by Arians” (Christian martyr)

• “victim of lower-level rivalries…disliked because of his idealistic stand against corruption…”

Literary/Philosophical Antecedents

• Crossroads of the classical and medieval worlds: harmony of Platonic philosophy with Aristotelian method.

• Midway between Seneca and Aquinas

• “Last of the Romans: first of the Scholastics”

• Job, Psalms, Pauline theology

Genre

• Consolatio (Seneca’s “moral medication”)

• Confessio (Augustine)

• Pedagogic dialogue (Plato)

• Theodicy—”justify the ways of God to men” (Milton)

• Poetry/Prose

The Wheel of FortuneI reign

I shall reign I have reigned

I am without a kingdom

One of the most widely copied books of the Middle Ages

1385 Italian manuscript of The Consolation of Philosophy

The number of surviving manuscripts suggests that it was one of the first books printed by Caxton.

Translation/Imitation

• King Alfred (849-899) Translates Latin into Old English for the education and enjoyment of his Anglo-Saxon subjects

• Prose translation serves as basis for his Lays of Boethius

• Alfred introduces Christian themes (Christ, angels, Satan; Lady Philosophy becomes Wisdom)

Translators/Commentators• Nicholas Trevet (1265-1335)

extensive commentary on Alfred’s translation

• Jean de Meun (1250-1305) translates into Old French.

Li Livres de confortproliferation of versions in France (14th-15th

century)Both Trevet and de Meun influence

Chaucer’s Boece (~1380)

• John Walton’s verse translation (1410) ottave rima and rhyme royalprologue damns Theodoric for murdering

Boethiusnot grand but competent—follows Boethius

closely

Dante• Boethius numbered among

the twelve lights in the heaven of the sun, calling him

“That joy who strips the world’s hypocrisies Bare to whoever heeds his cogent phrases:” (Paradise, X)

• Finds consolation in Boethius’s words after death of Beatrice—Beatrice modeled after Lady Philosophy

• Narrative structure—”ascent of the soul to the contemplation of the mind of God.”

Literary Afterlife• Queen Elizabeth I (1593) was

reputed to have completed her version in 24-27 hours—when she was 16 years old (half an hour per page)

• Dictated the prose to an amanuensis, but wrote the prose herself

• “with sorrow’s note the wavering trees he moved…”

Chaucer’s Boethian echoes

• Temporality—What endures?• Instability of love, chance, fate, destiny• Soul on pilgrimage

– “The Former Age,” “Lak of Stedfastness,” “Truth”

– Troilus and Criseyde, Parliament of Fowls– Knight’s Tale, Clerk’s Tale, Franklin’s Tale,

Parson’s Tale, Tale of Melibee, Man of Law’s Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Wife of Bath’s Tale, Monk’s Tale

Chaucer’s Interest in Boethius?

• Jean De Meun’s extended Roman de la rose: student-teacher relationship (dreamerGod of Love, Reason, and Nature)

“Anyone who thinks that his native land is here is very much a slave and a naïve fool. Your native land is not on earth, as you can learn from the clerks who lecture on Boethius’s Consolation and the ideas in it. If someone were to translate it for the laity he would do them a great favor.”

• Dante comments in his Convivio that the [Consolation] is “not known to many.”

Chaucer’s Boece: critical evaluation

• criticized for inaccuracies and ungraceful prose

• “he has attempted nothing higher than a version strictly literal, and has degraded the poetical parts to prose, that the constraint of versification might not obstruct his zeal for fidelity” (Samuel Johnson)

• renders Boethius for English readers (extensive glosses implies audience with little or no Latin)

Further Questions

“To acquire a taste for it is almost to become naturalised in the middle ages.” (C.S. Lewis)

• What accounts for the book’s popularity throughout the Middle Ages?

• Did Boethius make Chaucer a philosophical poet?

• Why is the absence of an explicitly Christian theology?

• What is the difference between a philosophical reflection and theological reflection?

Sources:• Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. translated by David

Slavitt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008• Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. translated by V. E. Watts.

London: Penguin, 1969.• Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. translated by Patrick

Gerard Walsh. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.• Boitani, Piero and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Companion to

Chaucer. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.• Champe, Gertrud Graubart. “Boethius” in Encyclopedia of Literary

Translation into English. Vol. 1. ed. Olive Classe. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000.

• Gray, Douglas ed. The Oxford Companion to Chaucer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.

• Hannah, Ralph and Traugott Lawler. Boece. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. ed. Larry Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1987.• Marenbon, John. Boethius. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.• Pryor, Felix. Elizabeth I: Her Life in Letters. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2003.