Boethius

This page was created for the fall 1994 Boethius Internet seminar, which offered "credit" and grades from the University of Pennsylvania to four doughty participants from around the world, as well as the lively experience of auditing to hundreds more. The page is maintained as a resource for students and scholars and will doubtless be the basis of future teaching as well. For further information, contact jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. This page is an index to the materials for that course. Click here for the assigned readings from the Consolation for each week of the term of the fall of 1994.

For the Latin text of the Consolation along with some supporting materials, click on this sentence. An English translation is also available. Included there is a short bibliography.

Also available, courtesy of the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum project, T. Mathiesen director, Indiana University is the Latin text of Boethius' de musica with some added features.

The International Boethius Society and its journal, Carmina Philosophiae, will be of interest to many who read this page.

The complete log of seminar postings is available, and that log also has a searchable index.

Topics for the student of the Consolation:

• Text
  * history of editions (best: Weinberger, Bieler, Büchner)
  * modern commentaries: J. Gruber (advanced), J. O'Donnell (students)
  
• Manuscript Tradition
  * abundance of copies from ninth century (see editions)
  * medieval commentaries in abundance, esp.:
  ** Saeculi Noni Auctoris, ed. E. Silk
  ** Tradizione Perdute, F. Troncarelli
  ** Nicholas Trivet (never yet printed, widely influential)
  * medieval translators: Alfred the Great, Jean de Meun, Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth I
• Early Medieval Invisibility
  * no sign of readership in sixth century or immediately thereafter
  except what is indicated by "subscriptions" in MSS
  * abundant popularity from ninth century
  * why popular? see H. Chadwick's preface quoting tenth century
  author of a commentary on 3M9 asking the same thing
  
• Biographical Issues
  (NB: Why is the "author" so important?")
  * martyrdom?
  * Christianity?
  ** G. Arnold, F. Nitzsch
  ** Ordo generis Cassiodororum ("Anecdoton Holderi")
  discovered in nineteenth century offering decisive evidence
  ** V. Schurr, Die Trinitätslehre des Boethius im Lichte
  der 'Skythischen Kontroversen'
  
• Ostrogothic Italy
  * Important contemporaries: Ennodius, Cassiodorus
  
• Quellenforschung
  * see esp. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques and La
  Consolatio de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire
  * see also R. Sorabji, Philoponos and related works
  
• Literary Aspects
  * genre (see Relihan on Menippean Satire and numerous articles
  by D.R. Shanzer)
  * literary filiations (Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue,
  O'Daly, The Poetry of Boethius)
  * narrative, character, reader's expectations
  
• Boethius's Other Works
  * Plato/Aristotle/Porphyry/Platonic tradition
  * "liberal arts" (see I. Hadot)
  * magic/theurgy?
  
• Philosophical Issues within Text
  * fortune
  * fate
  * providence
  * philosophy
  
• Nachleben
  * what was it actually used for by its medieval readers?