Influence of Boethius on Troilus and Criseyde :: Troilus Criseyde Essays

Influence of Boethius on Troilus and Criseyde Around 524, the Christian philosopher Boethius awaited his death. During the last stage of his life, he composed one of the most influential writings of the Medieval period: The Consolation of Philosophy. C.S. Lewis says of the work, "To acquire a taste for it is almost to become naturalized in the Middle Ages" (Lewis 75). Over 800 years later, Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the most highly praised authors in the English language, would draw upon Boethius to compose his finest work, Troilus and Criseyde. The most important Boethian influence Chaucer extracts is the intensity of something being increased or decreased by the knowledge of its opposite. Boethius' main discussion of this concept is in books three and four deal where he deals with the problem of evil. The question at hand is, "How can evil exist in a world with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God?" If God is all-powerful, is anything impossible for God? If God is all-good, can God commit evil? After much discussion, Boethius concludes that evil is a lack of good and those who commit evil lack something. He writes, "so it is plain that those who are capable of evil are capable of less" (Boethius 110). He continues, "Therefore the power of doing evil is no object of desire" (110). Thus "the power of doing evil" is a lack of "the power of doing good." Boethius can know what evil is only when he first realizes how to determine good. Chaucer states problem in this way: "Everything is known for what it is by its opposite"(Chaucer 14). Chaucer's main examples of this phenomenom deal with the sweetness of joy and the bitterness of suffering. First, sweetness is made sweeter when one has tasted the bitterness of suffering. "And now sweetness seems sweeter, because bitterness was experienced" (79). When one experiences extreme bitterness, the slightest fading of that suffering brings ecstasy. On the other hand, bitterness is all the more bitter when one has tasted the sweetness of delight. Pandarus says, "For of all fortune's keen adversities the worst kind of misfortune is this: for a man to have been in good times and to remember them when they're past" (86-87). If one has tasted a high degree of sweetness, a lower degree sweetness is not as satisfying. This line of thought seems to be directly from Boethius.