The Consolation of Philosophy

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Written while Boethius was in prison, in the period leading up to his brutal execution, this is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy, whose instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. The clarity of the author's thought and his breadth of vision made this book hugely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas suffused the thought of Chaucer and Dante