Public-domain ebook
by Boethius
Language: en2,060 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Early English Text Society·Classics of Literature·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #42083.
This volume presents Geoffrey Chaucer’s Middle‑English prose rendering of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae, the philosophical treatise that blends Christian theology with classical Stoicism. The opening pages are occupied not with narrative but with a meticulous description of the text’s editorial apparatus: instructions for handling character‑set problems, explanations of linenotes, and details of line‑numbering conventions. An introductory essay then situates Boethius in the medieval imagination, noting how his prison dialogue inspired writers from Alfred to Dante, and how Chaucer’s translation appears twice, once with full scholarly notes and once as a clean text. The reader is thus introduced to a work that is as much a scholarly edition as a literary translation, offering both the original Latin‑inspired passages and Chaucer’s own Middle‑English renderings.
The voice is that of a 19th‑century editor, Richard Morris, whose careful, sometimes ornate commentary reflects the Victorian habit of exhaustive footnoting. The prose itself retains Chaucer’s Middle‑English diction, complete with archaic spellings, abbreviations, and occasional Latin glosses, giving a flavor of the language that medieval scholars would have encountered. Readers who enjoy the intersection of textual criticism, historical linguistics, and the philosophical debates of happiness, free will, and divine order will find this edition rewarding. It especially appeals to students of medieval literature, scholars of Chaucer, and anyone interested in how a Roman philosopher was mediated through the vernacular of 14th‑century England.
The opening · free to read
In the printed book, line numbers were squeezed in wherever there was room. For the e-text, they have been regularized to the EETS-standard multiples of 4. Line divisions and page numbers were retained for use with the Index and linenotes, except that some very short words have been moved up or down to avoid awkward gaps. Headnotes have been moved to the nearest convenient line break.
Italics representing expanded abbreviations are shown in b{ra}ces. Other italics are shown conventionally with lines. Superscripts are shown with ^ (caret); they always continue to the end of the word. Oversized initial letters are shown with double leading ++ as ++A. In the Appendix, decorative final letters are shown with single + as dar+, sprong+. Italic thorn (þ) and yogh (ȝ) seem to have been unavailable to the printer; both letters have been formatted to match the surrounding text.
The inverted semicolon (rare) is shown in brackets as [;]. All other bracketed letters or letter groups are in the original.
In the primary text, anomalous spellings with initial “u” or non-initial “v” are not individually noted. Other errors, whether corrected or not, are listed at the end of the e-text.
For this e-text, Chaucer’s translation of the Consolatio is given twice: first as printed, with all notes and apparatus, and then as text alone.]
Chaucer’s Translation of BOETHIUS’S “DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIÆ”
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