Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Consolation of Philosophy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Classical Philosophy and Medieval Christianity
Wisdom, Fortune, and Happiness
The Problem of Evil
Human Free Will and God’s Foreknowledge
Summary
Analysis
Boethius sings about abrupt changes in nature: clouds obscuring sunlight, a storm disturbing the calm ocean and muddying the water, and a fallen boulder redirecting a stream. He compares this to how people must liberate their minds from the confining forces of “joy and fear,” and “hope” and “grief.”
These natural changes specifically reference the way Philosophy’s wisdom promises to save Boethius from his despair, but they also metaphorically point to the way opposite forces actually work together and balance one another out, when the universe is considered on a broader scale. What appear to be contradictions are actually complements, when viewed on a cosmic scale. So, rather than falling into one or the other of these complementary forces (i.e. being overtaken by “joy [or] fear”), Boethius suggests that wise people should learn to see both halves at the same time, and therefore always see people, objects, and events in relation to the entirety of God’s greater, rational, balanced universe.
Themes
