Boethius

There are some texts that one returns to again and again. For me, Boethius' Consolatio is one of them. I first encountered this work in undergrad, lo, these many years ago, and have returned to it periodically over the years, both personally and professionally.

I recently returned to the text after some 5-6 years since I've really looked at it, using this time the Penguin translation. Back in 2001, I worked through the first book and part of the second in Latin, and I read P. Walsh's translation in 2003.

Its been a difficult period, both professionally and personally. The dissertation process is one that has nearly removed me any pleasure or desire to ever be in academia. Were it not for an adjunct gig reminding me how much I love being in the classroom, and a couple of projects reminding how much I love to do research, I'd have ended my bid for an academic career. That other than my adjunct gig I don't have an academic career is at the moment beside the point. So, I needed some Consolation.

But it isn't just that that spurred me....there are some texts that I think both personally and professionally I need to return to, to be steeped in, to let those authors and texts become a significant part of me. The Consolation of Philosophy is one such text for me. Now, some of these texts, some of us are able to teach from time to time, Beowulf, The Odyssey, etc are two such texts for me. But there are others that I have yet to be able to teach, the Consolation, Augustine's Confessions and On Christian Doctrine, Dante are a few of these on my list. (Perhaps this is a good time to start a new meme: what texts do you find yourself revisiting often (by desire, not force) and that are important to you.)

So, serendipity struck again and I found myself wanting to return to this text at the intersections of professional and personal needs. I was surprised after all this time how much of the Latin text I remembered and naturally how much more of those portions I recalled than the parts I've only ever known in translation. Of course, I know this to be true, nothing sticks in your memory as well as some text on which you've worked in another language. Still though, since its been 8 years now since I've even looked at the Latin, I was a bit surprised.

Boethius is always an odd read, I think. He posits a divine figure that controls all things, and in that we should take comfort because even those things that are evil are not so, but simply part of the plan so to speak. It is such a view that gave rise to Calvinism and that system's strict predestination, like Boethius, meant to be a comfort to the believer that God has it all in hand. There is no theology of accident. Unlike Calvinism and other deterministic views, though, for Boethius there seems to be plenty of room for free choice of individuals. Evil people choose to do evil things, but doing so is still part of the plan.

And I always laugh at Philosophy's rebuke of the Muses in Book I, so very Platonic in form and tone. Yet I've found that literature, and poetry in particular, often help me more that Plato or Aristotle....and poets I think probably overall had a greater impact on how people view themselves and the world that philosophy ever did, no matter how highly philosophy is held. Nonetheless, it is an amusing scene, particularly since in rejecting the Muses Philosophy herself engages in the Muses' activity by composing and singing poetry in largely traditional Classical meters!

As I read the text again I was reminded too of many things in manuscripts: coming across a phrase in the text where a manuscript gets the Greek wrong, and then tracing where that particular error arose...yet the interlinear commentary on the Greek phrase renders it's meaning correctly.....or in how many manuscripts I looked at, there is significant evidence of the first couple of books having been read carefully, but much less evidence of it thereafter...so as highly influential as Boethius was on Medieval thought, I would hazard a guess that it was the first two books that were the most influential and most well known.

I've always meant to get to the 14 or so Boethius manuscripts from A-S England, but this whole PhD and dissertation thing got in the way and has taken my time. Since then Malcolm Godden and other scholars have done a lot of work on them and Bruce Gilchrist informed me that Godden's work on the Old English Boethius, with Susan Irvine, book is now out and weighs in at over $200. Just looking it up, it's $365 from Oxford here. Just let me say how very jealous I am....but nonetheless I think there is still some great work to be done on the Latin commentary tradition, both within and without England. No one has really done substantial work on that since Edmund Silk's 1935 Saeculi Noni Auctoris in Boetii Consolationem Philosophiae Commentarius--a magnificent piece of work, but Silk was wrong in many of his conclusions, and there is still a great deal of work to do. I confess that I've always had an interest in Alfred's Boethius, mentioned above, but when I started looking at Boethius, Nicole Discenza had already been doing her dissertation on it, and has now published a book based on her work and published other materials. With Godden and Irvine's work, Discenza's, and a couple of conferences on Alfred's Boethius, there seems to be quite a lot of attention going that way these days...and that's a good thing even if I'm sitting on the sidelines.

In another vein, I can't help but think of Boethius' influence on Tolkien and Lewis. In Lewis, I think the influence much more obvious and even in some ways acknowledged. I think the influence on Tolkien much more subtle. Unless some has or will beat me to it, I do plan an article someday on Boethius and Tolkien. A few comments here though: one place where I've always seen such an influence is a comparison between Lady Philosophy and Galadriel. Many have drawn the parallels between Galadriel and Mary, and a few others have seen the influence of the Middle English poem The Pearl on the conception of Lothlorien, especially as we enter Lothlorien from Moria. And in many ways, the "pearl" character of the poem, who stands in the place of Mary, is influenced by Dante's Beatrice, both as standins for Mary, and all three I'd maintain influenced by Boethius' Philosophia. More directly I think Galadriel, for example, in seeming both young and old, changing in size, her role as healer of hurts of body, but even more so of soul and spirit, font of wisdom and knowledge, who sees into hearts and minds, owes a great deal to Boethius' Philosophia.