The Land of Unlikeness

How to read the Consolation with a touch nuance
Two contemporary scholars have argued against Claasen’s and Chadwick’s kind of didactic reading (see last the post here). Both Joel C. Relihan and John Marenbon share the theory that Boethius is questioning Philosophy’s ability to lead him to an attainment of the good, but they differ as to Boethius method and what degree of impact the Menippean format has on Boethius’ project. ¹

John Marenbon’s thesis, on one hand, is simply as he states in the introduction to his book: “The Consolation is, as its complex literary structure should immediately suggest, not just a work of but about Philosophy; a subtle text which could be understood on various levels.”² But as Marenbon is also quick to point out, our approach to the Consolation requires more than philosophical proficiency. The Menippean Satire, rather than providing a neutral structure, as Chadwick and Claassen believe, infuses the work with a satirical bent (as the “satire” in Menippean Satire suggests). As such, the inclusion of poetry serves to help make sense of the gaps in Philosophy’s arguments, the fact that while she leads Boethius to the good (III.10), she can not help him attain it.³ In fact, Marenbon argues that the inclusion of the Menippean format is even more crucial to the Consolation than either the consolatio or the dialogue genre. While “modern discussion of the Consolation has tended to be either philosophical or literary,” he suggests that two factors are necessary for a whole reading: the poems, and Boethius’ Christianity.⁴ Operating between these two invisible hermeneutical poles are the two stated goals of the Consolation: 1. curing the sick Boethius by means of Philosophy’s remedies; and 2. demonstrating what true happiness is.⁵ Thus, Marenbon has the task of showing how his reading can better elaborate on these two goals. In terms of Boethius’ Christianity, Marenbon points to textual evidence. “The Consolation is a dialogue between a figure who is recognizably a Christian - Boethius - and a figure who is not - Philosophy. The reasons for making this assertion are almost too obvious to remark.”⁶ He also points to inconsistencies in Philosophy’s arguments when she’s forced to deal with issues raised in light of Boethius’ faith, as in book V when she (inadvertently?) defends causal determinism.⁷ Continue reading ‘Satire and Sufficiency III’

1. Marenbon is writing ten years after Relihan’s Ancient Menippean Satire (1993), and four years before Relihan’s The Prisoner’s Philosophy (2007); they represent a live conversation about the role of Menippean Satire in interpreting the Consolation.↩
2. Marenbon, Boethius, 4. ↩
3. Book III is, in many ways, the turning point of the Consolation: Boethius has recovered from his overwhelming grief through a back and forth with Philosophy. Maybe the discussion with Philosophy has provided a bit of a distraction. Maybe the philosophical give and take has been a grace to him in his solitude. Philosophy ends Book II by singing a song of cosmic love - “what binds all things to order, / Governing earth and sea and sky, / Is love” (II.m.8.13-15, Loeb ed.). Boethius declares his relief, both from her arguments and her rendition of the muse’s art, and his desire for more. Philosophy, in what could be seen as both haughty and seductive, responds: “[W]ith what desire you would burn if you knew where I am going to lead you” (III.1.15-17 Loeb ed.). She then asserts that she will lead him to true happiness; not the mundane sort that got him in the bind he’s in now, and that he has been pining away for, alone in a prison cell. No. This is the kind that occupied his heroes, Aristotle and Plato. Happiness, she explains, has been sought through different means - temporal power, self-sufficiency, fame, honor, and physical health. All, both characters agree, are simply means to something greater, namely true happiness. And while Boethius holds a more complex view of happiness, Philosophy believes that true happiness is actualized in a state of complete independence to these secondary states (wealth, health, etc..). This view, that the happiness which Boethius seeks is to be found only in rationality, will be the thrust of her argument through Book III, until she gets to discussing God, a discussion that comprises the end of Book III. This Book, therefore, is both a focal point of Philosophy’s energies, as well as the point in which Boethius, both as character and author, will break that focus through a barrage of dialogical questioning and the irony introduced through the Menippean form. ↩
4. Marenbon, Boethius, 99.↩
5. Marenbon, Boethius, 100.↩
6. Marenbon, Boethius, 157: The character Boethius affirms a quotation from Wisdom 8.1 by Philosophy; further, Boethius is evidently concerned about the efficacy of prayer in the absence of free will, in V.3.33-34.↩
7. Marenbon, Boethius, 158.↩