70 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic of philosophical thought--Key to the middle ages., October 20, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I didn't know exactly what to expect when I first picked up a modern-English translation of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius' _The Consolation of Philosophy_. I knew that Boethius was held to be one of the greatest thinkers of his time--a child prodigy from a distinguished Roman family, a distinguished student of Greek, who essayed to translate all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin, and reconcile their philosophies (a task which he never completed). I knew that _The Consolation_ was held to be one of the most influential books of the middle-ages: translated into English by Geoffrey Chaucer and no less than two English monarchs.
I didn't expect the fusion of allegorical tale, platonic dialogue, and lyrical poetry (the genre is officially called the Menippean Satire)that I found. The issues _The Consolation of Philosophy_ addresses were already the time-worn province of philosophical thought by the time that Boethius essayed to address them: the nature of predestination and free will, why evil men often prosper and good men (as Boethius thought himself) often fall into ruin, the nature of the relationship between time and eternity. And the answers are mostly not new with him either: long chains of sophistical reasonings that prove, among other things, that evil men do not wholly exist, and that by allowing them to obtain their evil desires, God is punishing them more terribly than if he had stopped them. The answers are familiar, in tone, if not in exact content: a mystic-based neoplatonic vision of God as an eternal oneness, to which the soul rises through the layers of being. A somewhat recursively defined and unworldly 'good,' to which all souls aspire. Long passages on the vanity of worldly gain, the fickleness of fortune--all of them are familiar to readers who've read much classical or medieval philosophy.
But much of what feels familiar in _Consolations of Philosophy_ is not familiar from its sources, but from the many works for which it is the basis. It is in Boethius that much of the thought of the the Classical period was made available to the Western Medieval world. Thus, you find things in _The Consolation_ that echo throughout the Western Canon--the female figure of wisdom that informs Dante, the ascent through the layered universe that is shared with Milton, to say nothing of the ideas of the reconciliation of opposing forces that find their way into Chaucer in _The Knight's Tale_, among others.
But beyond the influence of the ideas, what _The Consolation of Philosophy_ has that is lacking in most other philosophical texts is a feeling of the importance of these ideas: Boethius wrote this book while awaiting trial and execution (he was ground to death in a mortar) on charges of treason, and though the book isn't explicitly autobiographical, the problems that it deals with were of the utmost importance to him at the the time, and he didn't have time to spare on superfluities. What results, then, is a philosophy made explicitly to deal with suffering: compact and full of emotion. Whether you read this book as a key to Medieval thinkers, an introduction to Classical thought, or simply as a way of looking at the problems that still concern us to this day, you should, by all means, read it.
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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A gripping book, March 19, 2000
This review is from: The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
Axel Boethius wrote this book under the most horrifying circumstances imaginable; while awaiting his own rather grisly execution. What surfaces from these extreme and morose circumstances is a true masterpiece of philosophy.
The book is told in the same general style as a Platonic dialogue, with two interlocutors; Boetheius and the personification of Philosophy. Boethius chooses a Lady figure to represent the avatar of Philosophy. Its construction reminds me very much of Diotema's parlance with Socrates in Plato's "Symposium."
In the book, Boethius does a Christianizing interpretation of many classical myths and allegories. My favorite was the spin he put on the myth of Orpheus in the underworld.
This is a fine book in the history of philosophy and religion; a must read for medieval scholars.
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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Boethius and The Consolation, March 9, 2000
This review is from: The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
This is a must for any student of philosophy. Boethius is the transition from Roman and Neo-Platonic philosophy into the Medieval Period.
I would also recommend this book to those facing doubt in their studies, or college students thinking of quitting. It is a short work, easy to read and great in its comfort.
"Be not overcome by your misfortunes, for the gifts of fortune are fleeting and happiness is not to be found in temporal goods. Only by being like God, who is the highest good, can lasting happiness come to man." Lady Philosophy counsels.
Although the work is neo-Platonic Aristotle and Porphyry are heavily drawn from - so the advanced reader could consider those volumes too.
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