Rövid leírás:
Boethius was a Roman senator who rose to high office under the Gothic king Theoderic the Great. He translated into Latin all he knew of Plato and Aristotle, and was profoundly interested in the issues of theology and philosophy. The Consolations were written while he awaited the execution of a tyrannical death sentence. The Consolations of Philosophy have been translated into English by King Alfred, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth I. This scholarly study by Henry Chadwick, the first this century since the War, has stimulated new interest in these remarkable works.
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Hosszú leírás:
The Consolations of Philosophy by Boethius, whose English translators include King Alfred, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth I, ranks among the most remarkable books to be written by a prisoner awaiting the execution of a tyrannical death sentence. Its interpretation is bound up with his other writings on mathematics and music, on Aristotelian and propositional logic, and on central themes of Christian dogma.
Chadwick begins by tracing the career of Boethius, a Roman rising to high office under the Gothic King Theoderic the Great, and suggests that his death may be seen as a cruel by-product of Byzantine ambitions to restore Roman imperial rule after its elimination in the West in AD 476. Subsequent chapters examine in detail his educational programme in the liberal arts designed to avert a threatened collapse of culture and his ambition to translate into Latin everything he could find on Plato and Aristotle.
Boethius has been called `last of the Romans, first of the scholastics’. This book is the first major study in English of a writer who was of critical importance in the history of thought.
`Given the range of Chadwick’s learning, the balance of his judgement, and felicity of his style, it is hard to conceive of a better general introduction appearing for some time … a fine summary of current scholarship on Boethius.’
Classical Philology
