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Anicius Boethius

David R. Slavitt

The Consolation of Philosophy Paperback – September 1, 2010

by Boethius (Author), David R. Slavitt (Translator), Seth Lerer (Introduction)

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In this highly praised new translation of Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy, David R. Slavitt presents a graceful, accessible, and modern version for both longtime admirers of one of the great masterpieces of philosophical literature and those encountering it for the first time. Slavitt preserves the distinction between the alternating verse and prose sections in the Latin original, allowing us to appreciate the Menippian parallels between the discourses of literary and logical inquiry. His prose translations are lively and colloquial, conveying the argumentative, occasionally bantering tone of the original, while his verse translations restore the beauty and power of Boethius’s poetry. The result is a major contribution to the art of translation.

Those less familiar with Consolation may remember it was written under a death sentence. Boethius (c. 480–524), an Imperial official under Theodoric, Ostrogoth ruler of Rome, found himself, in a time of political paranoia, denounced, arrested, and then executed two years later without a trial. Composed while its author was imprisoned, cut off from family and friends, it remains one of Western literature’s most eloquent meditations on the transitory nature of earthly belongings, and the superiority of things of the mind. In an artful combination of verse and prose, Slavitt captures the energy and passion of the original. And in an introduction intended for the general reader, Seth Lerer places Boethius’s life and achievement in context.

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Print length

208 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvard University Press
Publication date

September 1, 2010
Dimensions

4.25 x 0.75 x 7 inches
ISBN-10

0674048350
ISBN-13

978-0674048355

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a sensitive and readable translation, whose poetic merits place it beyond other translations of Boethius's great text.”―Henry Taylor

“A remarkable translation of one of the great masterpieces of philosophical literature.”―Gail Holst-Warhaft, Cornell University

“A springboard for personal reflection and a source of literate pleasure.”―Steven Chabot, Library Journal

“It's a remarkable book (though a short one), and its latest edition, rendered into fluid, compellingly immediate English by veteran translator David R. Slavitt, is very markedly the best one it's ever had...Slavitt presents the reader with Boethius brought to vibrant, vigorous life, to a degree that makes all previous English versions seem pedantic and irrelevant. Harvard University Press has crafted a physically beautiful volume, sturdy and small enough to fit in your pocket--an extremely fitting format for a book that's meant to be a comfort against life's ills. Reading this edition, even readers who've never encountered Boethius before will see at once why his book has meant so much to so many people for the last 1,500 years.”―Steve Donoghue, openlettersmonthly.com

“This is a beautifully made little book that I have taken with me on a number of trips, partly just for the pleasure of holding it. At any time I would be glad to have it.”―John Wilson, Books and Culture

About the Author

David R. Slavitt is a poet and the translator of more than ninety works of fiction, poetry, and drama.

Seth Lerer is Dean of Arts and Humanities and Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 1, 2010
Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674048350
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674048355
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.25 x 0.75 x 7 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #70,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy
- #121 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #155 in Religious Philosophy (Books)
Customer Reviews:
(204)

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Anicius Boethius
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David R. Slavitt
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David R. Slavitt was born in White Plains, NY in 1935 and is now absurdly old but still in good health. He has published 130 books--poetry, fiction, translations, and reportage. He was educated at Phillips Academy and Yale University, and he went on to earn an MA at Columbia. He worked at Newsweek for seven years (1958-1965) the last two of which he was the movie reviewer. In 1965 he left the magazine, moved to Cape Cod, and became a free-lance writer, a precarious calling but one he thought he could supplement by working as a bartender during the tourist season. His parents were alarmed at this and tried to reason with him: "You found a job where all you have to do is go to the movies, and this was too strenuous for you?" I replied by reassuring them that Yalies don't starve. (This is not always true, but I managed to survive and have done so now for more than half a century.). Pushing my luck? Maybe, but it has been good so far.
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204 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book easy to read and digest, with one noting that the translation makes it accessible. Moreover, the content is insightful, helping readers better understand human existence, and one customer mentions it offers universal truths found in all religions and philosophies. Additionally, the translation quality receives positive feedback, and customers appreciate its timeless nature, with one describing it as an early medieval masterpiece. However, the formatting receives mixed reviews, with several customers reporting poor formatting.

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18 customers mention readability, 16 positive, 2 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and digest, describing it as a joy to read and a worthy edition of a classic work.

...looking for meaning in life and why to choose the good, this is an excellent read that has not lost its relevance with its age.Read more

Great readRead more

...This version is a joy to read and the translation of the poems are beautiful and inspiring....Read more

...A good little book that tells of the human condition, a little dated, as we say, but still a good read.Read more

13 customers mention content, 13 positive, 0 negative

Customers find the content of the book insightful, helping them better understand human existence. One customer notes that it offers universal truths found in all religions and philosophies.

...Small and compact for travel. Easy read and very insightful!Read more

This is an ancient book full of timeless wisdom for avoiding major pitfalls in life and helping us to value the right things.Read more

...is a joy to read and the translation of the poems are beautiful and inspiring....Read more

...About the book itself, it is a philosophy book, but not a staid one, the dialogue between Boethius and Lady Reason is engaging and it offers...Read more

9 customers mention translation quality, 7 positive, 2 negative

Customers praise the translation of the book, with one noting that it avoids archaic English.

Love this translation. I had an older version of Boethius that was hard to follow and written in an old English style....Read more

This is a wonderfully accessible and enjoyable translation, and the introduction is informative in many ways, ranging from the historical period to...Read more

...However, the translation is so good, and the message is so important, that I highly recommend that you purchase this edition anyway....Read more

...I think my main difficulty with it is the translation. The language is overly breezy and colloquial.Read more

5 customers mention timeless, 4 positive, 1 negative

Customers appreciate the timeless nature of the book, with one noting it has been influential for centuries, while another describes it as an early medieval masterpiece.

This is an ancient book full of timeless wisdom for avoiding major pitfalls in life and helping us to value the right things.Read more

...And,of course, the contents are timeless, and the concepts urgently relevant for today. However, the typeface is artificially archaic....Read more

This book inspired Dante and many others for centuries....Read more

...A good little book that tells of the human condition, a little dated, as we say, but still a good read.Read more

5 customers mention formatting, 2 positive, 3 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the formatting of the book, with several noting issues with the terrible layout, while one customer appreciates its simple writing style.

...The one draw back is that it needs a some revision for formatting errors for example it splits up the syllables in words, e.g., information might be...Read more

...attribution of a rational nature." For all his brilliance he writes simply....Read more

The Kindle edition suffers from terrible formatting. Words are broken apart, making it very difficult to read.Read more

...insignificant complaint, I recommend this translation for its fine, clear style....Read more

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Eric C
Best Translation
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Love this translation. I had an older version of Boethius that was hard to follow and written in an old English style.

This version is a joy to read and the translation of the poems are beautiful and inspiring. If you have wanted to read the Consolation, I would recommend this version.

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Excellent, readable translation of an early medieval masterpiece.
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Excellent translation of an important classic. I highly recommend this book. Boethius' masterpiece forces the reader to think about life in a way that only comes when you are awaiting death, the way he was as he sat in prison, condemned without trial. This is the type of book I gift to graduates when I get a chance, hoping they actually read it someday.

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Glenn J. Shea
On Consolation.
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
One of the most famous passages in Gibbon is his description of the imprisonment and assassination of Boethius. Simply put, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a scholar, translator and politician of the sixth century, consul to the then-emperor Theodoric. He was a scion of one of the most respected political families of the empire, universally thought to be a good and honest man, and was the author of philosophic and theological tracts. Despite the polish of his reputation, he ran afoul of Theodoric on two points: he accepted the doctrine of the Trinity, whereas Theodoric was a believer in Arianism; and in a political skirmish he defended the rights of the Roman Senate more vigorously than Theodoric was inclined to forgive. Boethius was condemned to prison and death but during his time in prison Theodoric allowed him paper and ink; he then composed The Consolation of Philosophy, considered one of the last breaths of Roman literature and a step into the canon and practice of medieval literature. At the end of his imprisonment, Gibbon tells us, “a strong cord was fastened around the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened until his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he expired.” (Some mercy, maybe; not a lot.) His remains were brought to the basilica of St. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, in Pavia, where they rest in a handsome chest in the crypt; Dante, who revered Boethius, speaks of this in the Paradiso, Canto X: “The body…. / lies down there in Cieldauro, and he has risen / from martyrdom and exile to this peace.”
With most literature we rely on the work gaining some existence independent of its author, but with the Consolation this is curiously not so. We cannot imagine it as a literary exercise; it is, it must be, the work of a man who knew he would soon be facing death by execution. Speaking first of the songs he sang in better times, he is given the vision of a lady, Philosophy, who proceeds, in the work’s five chapters, to strip her interlocutor from all hope in the temporary joys of life. Despite Boethius’s no doubt genuine Christianity, the Consolation is not a Christian work proper but a kind of Platonic, monotheistic work with Pauline echoes. It works, in the prose chapters that are interspersed with poems, with a rigorous logic to a final lesson: that all our worldly and temporary comforts must be abandoned; there is no truck between them and the greater, transcendent, final good. This lesson, especially granting its dramatic situation, is hard to refute, and yet some part of me feels the chill of this logic as well as its rigor, and that at some level the arguments fail. Like Lord Peter Wimsey, I am perfectly willing to say “I have not the philosophic mind.” Gibbon himself writes, “Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature.”
Perhaps, but in Boethius there is the tempering throughout of a wide-spirited and accepting nature. His pleasures must end; but in engenders in him no sneering, no haughtiness, at the fragilities of the world. Helen Waddell expressed it most finely: “He is both mystic and stoic, but without the contempts of either; a lover of life and unafraid of death, but neither its shadow nor the light of the world to come has taken from the greenness of the grass. It was fortunate for the sanity of the Middle Ages that the man who taught them so much of their philosophy was of a temperament so humane and so serene; that ‘the mightiest observer of mighty things,’ who defined eternity with an exulting plenitude that no man has approached before or since, has gone to gather violets in a spring wood, and watched with a sore heart a bird in a cage that has caught a glimpse of waving trees and now grieved its heart out, scattering its seed with small impotent claws."
Like Lucretius, Boethius has been singularly fortunate in his translators. King Alfred translated him into Old English (I know this has been questioned, but I couldn’t resist), Jean de Meung into Old French; Geoffrey Chaucer and Elizabeth I did versions. Henry Vaughan translated several of the poems, and Helen Waddell included several, with very fine translations, in her Medieval Latin Lyrics, which, yes, is a book you should read. A couple of the old Penguin translations of the Consolation can be found easily secondhand, and are not too bad, but David Slavitt in 2008 did a very fine new version published by Harvard; it’s an exceptionally handsome book.

--From Glenn's Book Notes

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Richard
A worthy edition of a worthy book
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2010
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I begin my comments with two disclaimers: (1) I would not presume to "review" Boethius, but I can offer a few superficial comments on this edition which may be of use to potential buyers; and (2) I do not know Latin, but can read Boethius only in translation.

There were many passages in this translation that I recognized as being definitely idiomatically modern. Those passages felt anachronistic to me and made me doubt to some extent that I was reading "the real thing", at least as much as one can ever read "the real thing" in translation. On the whole, though, allowing for that one not insignificant complaint, I recommend this translation for its fine, clear style.

The evident modernity of the translation made me want to read some other translation, so that when I was finished with this one, then just for something different, I chose Chaucer's Middle English translation, "Boece". I could not have successfully read "The Consolation of Philosophy" for the first time in Middle English, but I can read it in M.E. the second time. I am still chipping away at that, but so far Chaucer's translation seems distinctly more emotional to me than Slavitt's, and thus conveys a very different feeling. Maybe Chaucer and Slavitt have both impressed the emotional styles of their own ages onto the text? But how would I ever know? In any case, if the style of Slavitt's translation made me at once mostly happy, and yet needing to read another, then that is a sign of success for the translation.

As for Lerer's introduction, and also the physical quality of the book, I second the favorable comments of another reviewer, Mr. Allen Shull; see his review.

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Samuel Sadler
Great Work of Classic Lit
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I have encountered Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy at various points in my education and work, and each time there are hidden depths. This work contains great examples of the differences between medieval and modern philosophy.
For whatever reason, I wasn't enthralled with this particular edition... much prefer the Penguin edition.

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SusieQ
Short, Beautiful and Profound!
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book inspired Dante and many others for centuries. Written in prison by a person of great intellect and fortune, until he met with treachery and died in AD 524, he questions his Fate. It is a Theodicy, but it is presented as a conversation between the prisoner and Lady Philosophy. Boethius questions everything, but finds all the answers. It is a shame that such a beautiful (and short) work of art, with such profound, clear thinking is not required in all colleges. Even high school! I had to wait until after I graduated to be exposed to such rich ideas, rich vocabulary, and profound thought. It is a shame. The analogy of the Wheel of Fortune was made popular by this book and there is so much wisdom in Lady Philosophy. I can't tell you how much I loved this book for challenging me to reflect on philosophy on many levels, to a degree that not many books force. The insight gained by understanding this book is immense and influences my thoughts today.

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Bambafredo
Good edition. Few notes but nice translation that offers a smooth reading
Reviewed in Spain on April 26, 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase

The work of Boethius is an interesting reflection that, in short, understands fortune as a misunderstood manifestation of divine providence. The author offers a rational argument for many of the problems that still affect theologians today.

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Michael
Fantastic short book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2021
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Great read!

The book is beautiful in itself. Considering the death sentence and imprisonment of Boethius when writing it, it is absolutely marvelous.

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luke sundvall
Great little book besides the cover
Reviewed in Australia on August 24, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great little book, love it actually great translation of it. Shame the cover and back is a bit pixelated and not clear but besides that I’m happy.

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Great
Reviewed in Canada on September 16, 2022
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Excellent condition (brand new) + Arrived fast (about 4 days). Thank you

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AmazonCustomer
Practical philosophy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
A very accessible translation which facilitates the use of philosophy in everyday life. A book to have handy.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best Translation

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, readable translation of an early medieval masterpiece.

5.0 out of 5 stars On Consolation.

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy edition of a worthy book

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Work of Classic Lit

5.0 out of 5 stars Short, Beautiful and Profound!

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Good edition. Few notes but nice translation that offers a smooth reading

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic short book

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little book besides the cover

5.0 out of 5 stars Great

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical philosophy

Best Translation

Excellent, readable translation of an early medieval masterpiece.

On Consolation.

A worthy edition of a worthy book

Great Work of Classic Lit

Short, Beautiful and Profound!

Good edition. Few notes but nice translation that offers a smooth reading

Fantastic short book

Great little book besides the cover

Great

Practical philosophy