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Part 3: Sufficiency and Satire: Reading the Consolation through the Menippean Form
Published by Cynthia R. Nielsen June 30th, 2008 in BoethiusA guest post by Dan McClain. Dan is a doctoral student of theology at the Catholic University of America and blogs at The Land of Unlikeness.
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How to read the Consolation with a touch nuance
Two contemporary scholars have argued against this kind of didactic reading. 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]
The poems, Marenbon asserts, point directly to Boethius’ use of the Menippean format. Nearly three decades after Chadwick’s Consolations of Logic, Music, Theology, and Philosophy, it is a commonplace in Boethian scholarship that the Consolation is a work of Menippean Satire. Marenbon, however, is among few that insist that the satirical form dramatically affects the Consolation’s meaning. Whereas, the Consolation’s “links with [Philosophical and consolatio] genres do not affect its meaning… to recognize the work as Menippean Satire does, arguably, change how it should be understood.”[8] He argues that the gaps in Philosophy’s arguments, the lack of an Ariadne thread[9] in her arguments from beginning to the end of work, and the fact that she ultimately fails to help Boethius attain the good, all of this can only be explained by recourse to satire, that Boethius the author never intended to grant to Philosophy the sufficiency to exhaustively grasp the good. Yet, Marenbon’s trust in the Menippean form only goes so far. Whereas Relihan argues that Boethius is demonstrating Philosophy’s inability to come through on its own promises[10] - “This undermining of philosophy, Relihan believes, is in the service of the Christian faith”[11] - Marenbon thinks that Relihan’s argument is unconvincing. Philosophy makes powerful arguments that Boethius does in fact accept.[12] Marenbon suggests instead that through the Menippean format, Boethius explores the limitations of Philosophy. Menippean Satire gives Boethius a middle path between Philosophy and Religion to explore the limitations of Philosophy.
Marenbon concludes by noting that whereas Boethius could have overtly explored Philosophy’s inability to grasp the good, he only exposes her inability through the use of the Menippean and dialogue formats.[13] Sadly, Marenbon is content to do the same. And while his text is an overview of the entire extant Boethian corpus, he does little to explore how this reading of the Consolation, and the ramifications that he declares it has for Philosophy, might affect Boethius’ larger corpus. With Marenbon’s research and provocative statements as a jumping off point, the reader is left to speculate what role Philosophy might have in a different (more theological?) search for the good.
Relihan, in The Prisoner’s Philosophy (2007), boldly declares that the Menippean satire “insists on the essential disconnectedness of facts and rejects the mythical modes of reasoning that look for theories to explain events, or that it uses at least two voicesto oppose a threatening or false orthodoxy.”[14] Boethius, however, usurps the usual function of Menippean Satire for Christian ends. Relihan suggests that Boethius uses the Menippean Satire in order to create a via media between Philosophy’s pedagogical goals and the instability called up by the satirical form. The middle way is the Christian vision, through prayer, of the world as created.[15]
Relihan points to the quote from Esther at the end. As Esther has not mentioned “God” directly, so too the Consolation. Relihan directs us to the similarities between the injustice done to the Israelites in Esther, and the trumped charges and imprisonment of the innocent Boethius. While Philosophy has urged Boethius to forget these temporal matters in the search for true happiness, Boethius, the author, is apparently still concerned about temporal justice, and places this message, subversively, in Philosophy’s mouth. “Turn away then from vices, cultivate virtues, lift up your mind to heaven. A great necessity is solemnly ordained for you if you do not want to deceive yourselves, to do good, when you act before the eyes of a judge who sees all things.”[16] Here at the very end, Philosophy is calling Boethius to turn his eyes toward heaven, but Boethius hears something more than a self- and world- negating turn. According to Relihan, Boethius hears the call to this-worldly-righteousness in the vein of Mordacai and Esther. This entails that an understanding of scriptural texts of justice and righteousness are necessary to understand Boethius’ story (his life story as well as his psuedo-auto-biographical work). Amidst the legion of genres embodied in the Consolation, there is a parallel to Wisdom literature, the discovery of God in the everyday, and the discovery of the everyday through God.
But this begs the question of the importance of Boethius’ religious commitments. Twentieth century Boethian scholarship seems to think that the Consolation could have been written by virtually any (imprisoned) neo-Platonic philosopher of the time. This is Hankey’s proposal, that Boethius’ influence on the medieval Christianity is simply a matter of his contribution of another consolatio apathiae? Marenbon and Relihan shoot too many holes in this theory for it to be tenable any longer. Still, the question lingers: “Why did Boethius choose to write what could still be called uncharitably a crypto-Christian work?”[17] Relihan is not content with explanations that minimize Boethius’ Christian commitments, or the hermeneutical import they have for understanding Boethius’ corpus. A better explanation shows the Consolation uniting various genres (dialogue, satire, philosophical exposition, prisoner/exile literature) under the banner of wisdom literature with the purpose of creating something “experimental,” in Relihan’s words.[18] Wisdom literature provides a point of synthesis between pagan and Christian, where Boethius can explore the relationship of his faith and theological commitments to his philosophical education. “Like Wisdom literature in general, which gains its religious dimensions by its placement in the religious context of the canons of Scripture, Consolation co-opts secular traditions for religious purposes.”[19]
Unlike Marenbon, who thinks that the religious import of the work lies solely in the quiet subversion of the Menippean form, Relihan sees a deeper religious motive at work. He links Boethius concern with justice with his initial cry for God’s rule on earth (I.m.5). Here, Relihan draws the reader’s attention to similarities between the language of the Consolation and the Lord’s Prayer. He argues that “Boethius the author has been trying in these five books to represent a recreation not of the process of thought, but of the process of prayer.”[20] Incidentally, we never hear Boethius praying. However, his concern for prayer’s efficacy is only the obvious sign of Boethius’ larger, independent “deconversion” from Philosophy. Indeed, Boethius’ relationship to Philosophy is highly suspect by the end of the Consolation. Relihan sees in Boethius’ silence in the face of Philosophy’s barrage of argumentation at the end a “parting of ways” between the two. Boethius, he thinks, has discovered something that Philosophy possessed but neither realized nor intended to impart: “the present eternity of his sight runs along with the future quality of our actions dispensing rewards for the good and punishment for the wicked.”[21]
Notes
[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.
[8] Marenbon, Boethius, 160.
[9] “Ariadne thread” refers to a method of solving a dilemma to which there are multiple apparent ways to proceed; in mythology, Ariadne was the wife of Dionysius.
[10] Joel C. Relihan, Ancient Menippean Satire (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 193 (the relevant section stretches from 187-194).
[11] Marenbon, Boethius, 161.
[12] As at the beginning of book III, in which Boethius confirms that Philosophy’s therapy is working, and practically begs for more (III.1.1-9).
[13] Marenbon, Boethius, 163.
[14] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 4.
[15] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 4.
[16] Consolation, V.6.172-176.
[17] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 129.
[18] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 129: “…Consolation is an atypical philosophical work, and … Boethius is trying very hard to do something different an unexpected… alongside Augustine’s Confessions and Soliloquies as a spiritual meditation, as an attempt to speak objectively about the life of the mind and its relation to God.”
[19] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 129.
[20] Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy, 130.
[21] Consolation, V.6.1`68-170.
Dan,
Thank you for posting this additional material on the use of the Menippean form in the Consolation.
On a more radical Menippean reading like Relihan’s, according to which Boethius’s silence in the face of Philosophy’s argumentation at the end of the Consolation indicates a “parting of the ways” between the two, what does one make of Marenbon’s point that, as you put it, “Philosophy makes powerful arguments that Boethius does in fact accept”? Why should we read Boethius’s silence as a repudiation of these arguments, rather than as a realization that Philosophy can’t prove everything about the good?
You observe that Boethius and Philosophy agree that true happiness doesn’t consist in attaining goods like temporal power, self-sufficiency, fame, honor, physical health, and so forth. True happiness consists, rather, in attaining some higher good. I take this to be a philosophical result, albeit primarily a negative one because it doesn’t specify the nature of the higher good in a manner that also enables one to attain it.
This suggests, contra Relihan, that for Boethius philosophy still has a legitimate role to play by indicating, as Cynthia suggested, that there is a higher good and that it is not any of these other worldly goods. (Philosophy may also shed some light in other areas by showing that there need be no incompatibility between divine foreknowledge and human freedom, or that God is timeless.) However, it is not philosophy but faith nourished by prayer which leads us actually to attain the higher good, and hence true happiness, as far as we are humanly able. Such a view would seem to make Boethius an important precursor to the later medieval distinction between revelation and reason (philosophy as natural theology).
Like Cynthia, I’m no expert about Boethius or the Consolations, so I look forward to your further contributions.
Best regards,
Peter
Peter, Dan and All,
I read through the ealrier comments and had the benefit of listening as Dan constructed this project earlier in the year. So this conversation has prompted some interesting thoughts that I, as an ancient historian, did not consider. My thoughts then are from my own perspective and meant to add fuel to the dialogue.
1) Why must Boethius be a ‘Medieval’ scholastic? In the previous posts Peter seemed bent on maintaining B’s location in the Scholastic line. Now in this post, he tempers that by describing B as a “precursor.” First, there is clearly still debate on when we can talk of the Middle Ages. I would think B considered himself still Roman, and clearly not in turmoil pre-Carolingian period. That said I think we can see, as we do with Benedict, a new world emerging in B. In that sense they are both liminal figures, not quite Classical, and not quite Medieval. Second, any attempt to categorize B in the Schiolastic frame is completely anachronistic. We can see the seed of similar ideas, but I think that is due to readings by later writers, not B himself. I think we can say B is a precursor simply in the same way Augustine is a the foundation…their works were in Latin and accesible. What else would they have read!
2) Genre and exegesis: In an earlier post Peter commented that he would not be convinced except for by strong exegetical treatment of the text itself (my words, so if I am off please excuse my reading). It seems to me Dan is bring the generic form back into a reading of B that has been overlooked in most of the scholarship. If this is indeed a form of Satire, then how does that change our reading? To assume that a certain raading is normative simply because of time, is to commit the same fallacy as saying a text is only defined by its genre and not content. Students of Late Antiquity have for decades recognized the creativity of the author to both praise an idea and subvert it in the same treatise, why can this not be the case for B? (See Avril Cameron’s landmark work Rhetoric and Empire).
Anyways, thoughts for the mill. Thanks, Dan, Peter for the dialogue and Cynthia for hosting and keeping the debate going!
Josh
Josh,
Thanks for your input.
I’m not bent on reading Boethius as a medieval Scholastic. On the other hand, I’m extremely skeptical of any reading of the Consolation that interprets it as entirely “subverting” philosophy, as Relihan would apparently have it. Such a reading is especially problematic given that Boethius appears to take many of Philosophy’s arguments dead seriously. The fact that he argues with her is certainly no indication that he repudiates philosophy, since such argument is the bread and butter of philosophical analysis.
Even so, I also take seriously the point, suggested by Boethius’s ultimate silence in the face of Philosophy’s questioning, that it may very well be the view of the Consolation that philosophy alone can’t lead us to apprehend the good and thereby to enjoy true happiness. Faith and prayer are indispensable. Yet that point doesn’t preclude philosophy from still being able to tell us something about the good and other ultimate matters. Consequently, I don’t see why it’s so far-fetched to regard Boethius as anticipating the later Scholastic distinction between philosophy as natural theology and revelation. I never said that Boethius draws that exact distinction, but to my mind there are sufficient resonances with it to regard him as a precursor. If that reading is entirely wrong, then I expect a convincing argument to the contrary. So far we haven’t gotten it.
As for assuming that “a certain reading is normative simply because of time,” I agree that we shouldn’t make uncritical assumptions about historical context. Nonetheless, historical context matters. To think that someone like Boethius, who’s deeply influenced by the philosophical optimism of Plato and his immediate predecessor Augustine, is actually bent on using poetry to toss philosophy out the window strains credibility–no less than the idea that Plato is using the dialogue form to throw metaphysics out the window. Satirical elements may very well be present in the Consolation. But let’s not fall prey to the anachronistic fallacy of trying to turn it into a piece of post-modern poeisis.
Peter
This has been a great series!
I’ve been attracted by Marenbon’s and Relihan’s approach (leaning more toward Marenbon’s version), but I’ve had two worries I’ve never been able to shake:
One thing that has always bothered me about both Marenbon’s and Relihan’s interpretation is that they focus (almost) wholly on the issue of how Boethius might be using satire to explore the limitations of Philosophy, when in fact there seems to be a very good argument that its primary purpose is to explore the limitations of Boethius himself. In fact, Boethius is pretty clearly satirizing himself from the very opening moments of the book. The work may in addition be exploring the limitations of Philosophy, but before we can trace out how it has done so (if there is much to trace out), it has always seemed to me that it is futile to do so before we’ve taken into account how it has explored the limitations of human foible.
The second worry I have, more recent, is that in all this focus on the Menippean form certain things are getting lost. One reason that might be given for the old straight-laced reading of the work is that we should read it in light of Plato’s dialogues, especially the Gorgias, with which it has a number of explicit textual links and structural parallels (the most obvious example of the latter is that they both end very much the same way, with the same thematic notes and similar images; but there are others). Now, there is humor and satire in the Gorgias as well, with Socrates himself coming in for some of it; but no one thinks (as far as I know) that Plato is trying to show that Socrates’s response to the Sophists is limited. Rather, he is arguably just aware that people who have not fully understood Socrates’s view and been persuaded by it will not see the full scope of it and therefore will regard parts of it as odd; there is a sense in which any satirizing of Socrates in the dialogue is itself being satirized, as is any tendency of Plato’s audience to sympathize with the notion that Socrates is absurd. Ideally what we need is an interpretation of the Consolation that takes not only its satire form but its Platonic roots seriously at the same time. And I’m not really convinced that either Marenbon or Relihan have managed to do this.
Brandon, Josh and Peter,
I want to thank all of you for your contribution to the discussion this late in the series. I appreciate all of your intelligent comments and look forward to further conversation with you all beyond this.
I think Josh and Peter’s discussion needs to be further explored and isn’t something that I want to jump into at this point.
Brandon, I agree with you, that Boethius has something of Socrates in mind. The connection between their biographies can’t be missed, especially their final fate.
However, there is something of authorship that I want to keep in mind. Boethius is writing his final legacy in this, whereas Socrates as far as we know doesn’t leave us with anything but his star pupil’s writing. This matters, I think, because the Boethius of the Consolation is not the Boethius the author. Marenbon, in the a rather conservative reading I think, is strident in making this point.
So, I don’t see how this lessens your point that antique philosophy and its dialogue roots need to be kept in mind. Menippean satire is not a challenge to antique philosophy unless you think that antique philosophy is exhaustive and stands alone.
As for whether Boethius is satirizing himself versus Philosophy, I’d remark that this seems to be the case only at the beginning and not at the end. Besides, Philosophy is hilarious at the beginning - see my quote at the beginning of my first post in the series. Why can’t it be that he’s satirizing them both.
Lastly, something I intend to pursue further in the future, what is the significance of having not only a fictional character to dialogue with, but moreover a mythological and nearly goddesslike character? My gut is that he’s trying to make a programmatic and (possibly) universal statement about the humanities in general, and not just his life and fate. What better way to end one’s life than to reshape the humanities?
Thanks again for all your comments!
Best,
Dan
As for whether Boethius is satirizing himself versus Philosophy, I’d remark that this seems to be the case only at the beginning and not at the end. Besides, Philosophy is hilarious at the beginning - see my quote at the beginning of my first post in the series. Why can’t it be that he’s satirizing them both.
I think the claim that ‘this seems to be the case only at the beginning and not at the end’ is a bit debatable; Boethius, for instance, rather consistently tries to divert Philosophy’s discussion throughout the work away from himself into topics he is interested in. No doubt it becomes less obvious as the work continues; but this fits, in fact, with Philosophy’s theme of progressive cure. So I think we have to be careful not to be too quick here.
I do think there’s a possibility that the author’s satirizing them both; I think it’s much more obvious (particularly at the start of the work, but not only there) that he’s satirizing Boethius, and because of this I think we need to be careful to apportion the satirizing properly. If Boethius is being satirized, then we have to take into account that we can’t always take Boethius’s own comments on and responses to Philosophy with straightfaced literalness, because (for instance) if Boethius pokes fun at Philosophy (as Relihan suggests he is doing at the beginning of IV.1) we have to be open to the possibility that this is like Callicles’s mockery of Socrates: in context it’s really the mocker being mocked. We’d also have to take into account the possibility that certain features of Philosophy’s strategy and response to Boethius (e.g., the occasionally disjointed thread of discussion) are due not to herself but to the fact that she has to compensate for the absurdities of Boethius. It’s true that after we’ve taken into account things like this, we may still have a residue that shows that Philosophy is being satirized, but I think only after we’ve done this can we be sure we are not reading into it.
I agree that Philosophy is often hilarious; but there are ways of being hilarious that are not satirical. (Socrates, again, is an example.)
Brandon. I’m glad you’ve brought Socratic dialogue up here, as I wasn’t able to include it in the scope of the paper. You’re right that Socrates often mocks himself in the dialogue, or better put, the author of the dialogue often puts the character Socrates in some strange places. However, I don’t think you caught the point that I bring out in the third part of the paper, that I do not in fact take the words of the character Boethius to be the words or views, necessarily, of the author Boethius, anymore than Philosophy herself would represent the author Boethius. So, there we agree I think. But, if this is the case, then the author Boethius in satirizing the character Boethius is not necessarily satirizing the author Boethius. (That’s a mouthful) We can see a similar situation happening in Nyssen’s On the Soul & Resurrection, in which Macrina, his sister, severely chastises him for becoming skeptical about resurrection in the wake of Basil’s death and having been surprised to hear that Macrina herself is dying. Nyssen the author tracks with Macrina’s pedagogy of moving through grief to a highly intellectual discussion of death and resurrection until Nyssen the character comes to a renewed belief in Christ’s resurrection and the christian’s resurrection after death. So we see not the author Gregory of Nyssa dealing with skepticism and doubt, but the character Nyssen suffering from the blows of losing his siblings and the resultant doubts. I’m suggesting something similar with Boethius.
I’m not sure why you seem to think the Menippean format is exclusive to reading the Consolation as dialogue, or if that’s even what you’re saying. I tried to show that a sensitive reading will accomodate both. Whether I’m successful or not at that, I’ll leave you to judge. But I’m not sure that I see you accounting for the Menippean genre, which includes dialogue and satire, as well as poetry and song. if you take this genre and the way it functions seriously, and the fact that as in Capella’s _marriage of mercury and philology_ the genre is used often to work out meta issues - as the Socratic dialogues often are…. I’m thinking ION here - like the relationships of disciplines, then hopefully you begin to see what I’ve been trying to say here, that Boethius is not merely trying to work out issues of providence and time, but also trying to make a statement about the way Philosophy works and how much she’s able to cash out her claims. Even if you don’t take Menippean satire seriously as having a substantive contribution to the thrust of the Consolation, I think Relihan and Marenbon are right to point to Boethius’ damning silence at the end of the Consolation as a tell tale sign of this meta function.
One of the things, actually the most important thing, that I was trying to bring out in the paper is that there’s something new going on in Boethius’ use of the Menippean Satire that is not happening in didactic or even dialogical material. The poems are indicative of this. Nevertheless, you’re not alone, as I go to lengths to demonstrate at the beginning of the paper, if you read the poems as ancillary or supporting to the prose sections. But if you feel up to squaring off against Joel Relihan and John Marenbon, and in Nyssen scholarship Rowan Williams, then be my guest.
Thanks again for the challenging questions.
Hi, Dan,
I think you’re reading me as making a stronger claim than I am. I don’t think reading the work as a Menippean satire excludes reading it as a dialogue (my first comment, remember, suggested that it needs to be read as both). My point is simply that if Boethius the character is being satirized, we have to be very careful in determining how the satire reflects on Lady Philosophy, since we have to at least consider the possibility that things we are identifying as ’satirizing Philosophy’ are really ‘indirectly satirizing Boethius the character, to whom Philosophy is responding’. A good example is Relihan’s interpretation of Boethius’s response to Philosophy at the beginning of IV.1; he argues that Boethius is poking fun of Philosophy. This is very plausible. But how should we interpret this in the context of the whole work? Is it a sign that Boethius is in a superior position to Philosophy (which is effectively what Marenbon and Relihan are arguing), or is it a sign that Boethius still doesn’t ‘get it’? From that particular passage alone we can’t decide one way or another. Another good example is the ‘gaps’ in Philosophy’s arguments. Are they due to limitations on the part of Philosophy herself or due to limitations on the part of Boethius (whom both Marenbon and Relihan recognize occasionally diverts Philosophy from her intended way of proceeding)? Is Boethius’s damning silence at the end of the work a sign of a failure of Philosophy or a failure of Boethius? And so forth. Taking these as evidence that Philosophy is satirized requires having decided on questions like these; and it is here where I find the arguments of Marenbon and Relihan surprisingly weak. And it’s these weaknesses in the argument for the position, and not the position itself (which might well be right), that I was arguing was worrisome.
Brandon,
I’m agree that the fact that the thrust of one small part of the Consolation necessarily leads to the meaning of the entire work. I haven’t made that claim.
Again, I think that you’re missing the fact that the very employment of the Menippean form indicates that there is some sort of critique or rethinking of a discipline. Marenbon and Relihan have both completed large studies of this and their findings are thoroughly backed, if not more than compelling. Thus, as my last comment indicated, if you see the function of the menippean form, not only in small sections, but in the work as a whole, then their claim isn’t all that surprising. But you have to grant the literary point first. It doesn’t seem that you’re willing to do so.
thanks again.
Sorry, in the last comment, the first line should read “doesn’t necessarily lead”