Making the "Consolatio" in Middle English.

Author / Editor
Johnson, Ian.

Title
Making the "Consolatio" in Middle English.

Published
Phillips, Philip Edward, and Noel Harold Kaylor, eds. A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (Boston: Brill, 2012), pp. 413-46.

Description
Explores the "special place at the commanding heights of literary culture" that Boethian translation held in Middle English, surveying the variety of translations and uses of the "Consolation," commenting on the importance of Jean de Meun and Nicholas Trevet as mediators in the translation process, and focusing on Bo and on John Walton's translation of 1410. Finds "less clarity and elegance" in Chaucer's verse translation of Boethius in TC 4 than in Walton, but generally commends the subtlety and nuances of Chaucer's prose translation in Bo. Also comments on the "Boke of Coumfort of Bois," Robert Henryson's "Testament of Love," Chaucer's influence on them, and James I's "Kingis Quair."

Chaucer Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Boece
Troilus and Criseyde
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion